


The Children of Hades

by Cynder2013



Series: Sisters by the Styx [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, F/M, I swear some of this is purple prose, I'm glad I wrote this but also why did I write this?, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Murder, My First Fanfic, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, overdramatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:14:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 23
Words: 36,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cynder2013/pseuds/Cynder2013
Summary: It's peacetime for the Greek and Roman demigods. Mostly. Nico has a little sister now, and when she arrives at Camp Half-Blood she gets involved in one of the few dangers left that aren't demigod standard procedure.(Originally started in February 2013.)
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Leo Valdez/Sapphire Banks (PJO/HoO OC)
Series: Sisters by the Styx [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719322
Kudos: 18





	1. Favourite Quotes and Abrupt Announcements

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually my second fanfiction ever but I'm not posting the first one here. Nope, not happening. I've edited this story only for the dialogue tags and formatting so it's not totally bizarre and uncomfortable to read (I did not know how to use dialogue tags in 2013, and, gods, why did I use semicolons so much?), but aside from that it's almost exactly the same as what I have posted on fanfiction.net. (Actually, I'm going to add chapter titles, because the usual format I use for chapter titles in this series now won't work and it'll look weird if I don't have any.) It's not good. It's got a lot of annoying stuff that I'm now stuck with because I'm still working on this series. But, hey, rocky starts, right?
> 
> Just as a reminder, when I started writing this in February 2013, we were only up to _The Mark of Athena_ , so I was totally guessing as to what happened after that.

_Sapphire's POV_

Fifteen-year-old Sapphire Banks waved to her parents, twin sister, and little brother. It was the first week of summer vacation and her brother, like most of the other little kids, was getting driven to an overnight camp. She sighed and slammed the door as the car pulled out of sight. Then she collapsed on the couch.

“You know I would go with,” she said to the empty room. “But I get carsick, in fact long car trips rank somewhere between spaghetti and travelling on boats for me.” She paused. “I’ve heard the first sign of madness is talking to yourself.” The room didn’t answer but Sapphire couldn’t help but feel she was being watched. “Idiot,” she muttered. “Amber’s right, I need to get out more.”

Then again her sister wasn’t addicted to Rick Riordan’s books. Reading about Greek monsters and crazy Egyptian ghosts could make anyone jumpy. Still, Amber was the risk-taking twin. Sapphire was the stay-at-home-and-cover-for-her-twin twin. There was a big difference.

Sapphire sighed again. Then she reached for her copy of _The Mark of Athena_ , not even bothering to check the page numbers she turned to her favourite part. Well, one of her favourite parts.

““Well done, Frank Zhang,” Leo said dryly, doing his best impression of Chiron the centaur, “That is exactly how people beat Chinese handcuffs. They turn into iguanas.””[1]

She let out a laugh that bordered on hysterical. Poor, Frank. It was awesome that he was Canadian, she had almost fainted when she found that out, but the way Leo teased him...she shook her head. “You’ll be friends pretty soon, Frank, but right now it sucks.” She knew that from experience, she had hated Ed for a full three weeks before the boy next door had called a truce and they’d become best friends. “Of course it didn’t hurt that our backyards are connected.” The room was still silent. “Sure be that way.”

“What did I do?”

Sapphire froze. She hadn’t said anything.

She rolled off the couch with _The Mark of Athena_ sill in her hands and somehow twisted so that she was standing on her toes facing the owner of the voice. Then she stared. The boy had shaggy black hair and pale skin. He was wearing a black t-shirt that read “KEEP CALM AND PAY THE FERRYMAN” with a picture of skull and crossbones above it. Oh, and he was carrying a sword. Two in fact. One was hanging from his belt and the other seemed to be tied onto his back with a length of rope.

After she (somewhat) got over her shock Sapphire squeaked “Who are you and how the Hades did you get in?”

The boy was staring at the book in her hands. He muttered something that sounded like “That sure was a fun trip.” Then looked at her and frowned, “Are you going to stand up anytime soon?” 

Sapphire blinked then stood up. Then she cursed at herself silently ‘the ground is your friend’, had she learned nothing in self defence? “Idiot.”

“What was that?”

Sapphire scowled “I was talking to myself.” Then she repeated her question, not that she expected him to answer. The boy let out a short laugh. “What?”

“Hades,” he said, “That’s the point isn’t it?”

What did he mean? Hades?

Sapphire’s eyes widened she looked down at the cover of her book then back up at the boy. Black hair, black clothing, she’d be willing to bet that his sword was black too, pale skin, she looked at his hands, _skull ring_. “You...”

He nodded seeming to see she was putting it together. “Nico di Angelo, son of Hades.” He paused for effect, “And your big brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]This text is taken from page 212 of the hardcover copy of _The Mark of Athena_. Because that's what 2013 me decided to do.


	2. Cookies Aren't Always the Answer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that "overdramatic" tag I used? It really kicks in here.

_Nico’s POV_

It was almost amusing, Nico thought, to see a child of Hades gasping like a fish. The girl, his sister, was blinking with her mouth wide open making sounds that could be a frog trying to come out her windpipe or a warning that she was about to go into extreme shock.

Fine, it was probably the second one.

_“ Would you sit down and at least attempt to get your breathing under control?”_

The girl sat, but if Nico was hoping that speaking to her in Ancient Greek would calm her down (which he sort of was) he was sadly mistaken.

If he hadn’t spent so much time around his father (and the Ares/Mars kids) he may have ended up short a few pints of blood. As it was the punch that was headed for his face glanced off his ear and smashed right into the grip of the sword tied to his back.

“What was that for!?” Nico rubbed his ear.

His sister blinked. “So you are not a figment of my imagination. Good. I’m Sapphire Banks. Nice to meet you, Nico di Angelo. How are you?”

Nico scowled. “I was better before you tried to take my nose off. Was that really necessary?” 

The girl, _Sapphire,_ tilted her head like she was thinking. Then she nodded.

“You are a very strange person,” Nico said.

Sapphire shrugged. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Nico studied Sapphire’s face. Then he shook his head. He didn’t have time for this. “So, please tell me your parents are outside or something? We have to get moving.”

Sapphire grinned. “My parents _are_ outside, about zero point eight kilometres away from here. They’re with Amber dropping our brother off. Should be back in about an hour. Want a cookie while we wait? I think we have some chocolate chip left.”

Nico blinked. “What? We don’t have an hour! Two children of Hades attract a lot of monsters!”

Sapphire pointed. “That’s what the giant swords are for, yes? The cookies could be oatmeal. Want me to check?”

Without waiting, she got up and walked off, presumably to the kitchen to get the cookies.

Maybe he would just let the monsters have her.

* * *

_From the journal of Sapphire Amy Banks:_

July 2, 2013- 4:00am

Dear Penny,

You’ll never guess where I’m writing this from: the Hades cabin in Camp Half-blood. I know! I can’t believe it either! 

When Nico showed up at my house yesterday telling me I was his sister I was like ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’ but it’s true!

When Mum, Dad and Amber got back from dropping Richie off at sports camp they were, to say the least, shocked. Amber actually screamed and mum just turned a sorta pale colour.

We did introductions then dad asked what on earth was Nico doing in his house.

Nico was kinda trying to explain but his mouth was full of mum’s oatmeal- chocolate chip cookie so it was pretty hard to hear him.

When I said he was going to take me to Camp, Amber asked ‘You?’ like she didn’t believe me. 

I guess what with her being born first (only by five minutes!) she was expecting that if anyone was gonna be a demigod it’d be both of us or none of us.

The thing is, like I’ve said before, even though we’re supposed to have been identical twins we look nothing the same.

Amber has eyes the colour of her name, amber, hair like polished wood and skin like a non-Greek wood nymph.

(Trust me, her skin isn’t green. That would just be weird on a mortal.)

Then there’s me.

Raven-coloured hair, cream skin and dark purple eyes like Saskatoon berries.

Yup, totally identical.

Anyway, it took a long time to get mum and dad to let me come but we managed.

After I packed Nico used shadow-travel to take us right to Thalia’s tree.

Percy was right. Never use shadow-travel if you are scared of the dark, going so fast your eyes dry out or shivers going up your spine.

I think I could get used to it.

The camp has changed a bit.

For one Annabeth got to build that temple that she wanted to.

She also designed a guest house for the Romans from Camp Jupiter. It’s huge! There’s a room for each of the cohorts, the praetors and a few extras for anyone who wants to visit from New Rome. I think there may be more rooms in the place then in the Big House!

There are also way more campers because of, duh, the Romans. You’d hardly know thought because some of the Greek demigods (like Nico and Leo) got the Roman brand after the Giant War.

The Romans have a new augur. Octavian was a spy and Reyna killed him in the war. Nico said he got Punishment. Father wanted to boil him in bronze knives for eternity (how would this work exactly?) but when Nico suggested that he be buried in all of the stuffed animals that he ever sacrificed (which I’m guess would be a whole lot) he changed his mind.

Anyways. What was I talking about? Right, Camp!

We arrived in time for the camp fire; which meant that I was claimed right away. Most people tried to stay away from me after that but I still met a lot of demigods.

Here, I’ll list everyone I remember:

Leo Valdez- Son of Hephaestus. Yes, the Leo.

Ryan and Rella Coran- They’re Romans, twins and fifteenth generation legacies of Jupiter, second generation legacies of Apollo. They offered to help me with my Latin.

Percy Jackson-Son of Poseidon. Percy’s my cousin!

Annabeth Chase- Daughter of Athena

Katie Gardner- Daughter of Demeter. She was mostly arguing with Travis and Conner.

And

Travis and Conner Stoll- Sons of Hermes. It’s hard to forget them.

That’s about it. I think I saw Drew, you know Piper’s sister, but I wasn’t really that keen to say hello.

In fact, I think I’ll stay as far away from the Aphrodite cabin as possible until Piper comes back. She’s visiting Jason in New Rome.

Seeing that I’ve been writing this for a long time and my hand is screaming, I’ll put this book away for now. Wish me luck on my first full day at Camp Half-Blood!

From,

Sapphire


	3. Everything is on Fire (Sorta)

_Sapphire’s POV_

She had managed to fall back to sleep after writing in her journal. Unfortunately, wakeup call at Camp Half-Blood had been moved to 5 o’clock sharp. After a few minutes scramble, Sapphire arrived at breakfast yawning.

Nico was already at the Hades table when she got there, spooning Lucky Bones (Copyright: the Underworld) cereal into his mouth and yelling insults to Percy at the Poseidon table. He motioned for her to hurry up.

She dropped a piece of buttered toast into the fire and walked over. As she passed the Ares table one of the boys threw an apple at her head. She turned around and glared at him.

It wasn’t the patented child of Hades death glare and it definitely didn’t work as well as she would have hoped. The boy stopped laughing and grinned like she had just given him a wonderful challenge. He started to talk but Sapphire turned around and almost ran to her table.

Nico and Percy were still shouting at each other, she ignored them and began to eat. With the amount of campers there was she hoped she wouldn’t have to see that Ares boy again.

* * *

After archery class, which she was almost as bad at as Percy according to Will Solace, Nico pulled Sapphire aside. Literally.

“Nico, let go! We have sword-fighting next!”

Nico released her arm and stood in her way with his arms crossed.

“That’s a bit useless if you don’t have a sword.”

Sapphire looked at his sword, which was sheathed at his side. It radiated cold and the grass near it was becoming frost-covered. “Are you gonna let me borrow yours?”

Her brother shook his head.

“Then I’ll just have to use one of the camp swords,” she said decidedly. “Problem solved.” She attempted to dart around Nico but he stepped in front of her. “Nico!”

She continued to try and run around him and he would continue to block her. This ‘game’ went on for several minutes before Nico got bored. He shouted, “Dad got you a sword!” and Sapphire froze, just as she was about to try and jump over him.

“Really?” she asked.

“Really,” he replied. “It’s Stygian iron so I’m ....”

“Going to be teaching me!” she interrupted. Nico nodded and Sapphire squealed, catching the attention of two Roman campers who had been practicing archery. They put down their bows and jogged over, it took Sapphire 2.5 seconds to recognize them.

“Rella! Ryan!” She gave the twins a hug.

Rella smiled. “Hey, Saphy. What’s up?”

“You were loud enough to deafen a Kindly One,” Ryan added. 

Nico snorted. Three pairs of eyes stared at him and he flushed pink.

“It’s just, if the Furies,” (Ryan and Rella flinched.), “could be deafened that easily, dad would have to hire new workers.” Nico stated.

Sapphire giggled. “Nico is going to teach me sword fighting,” she explained, “and I got a bit overexcited.”

Ryan nodded. “We’d better let you get started then.” He pretended to clear out his ear. “Face _away_ from me next time you scream will you?”

Rella punched her brother then turned back to Nico and Sapphire. “Have fun,” she said. “Are you coming over for Latin lessons?”

“When we’re done,” Sapphire promised.

The twins grinned and headed back to the archery range.

Sapphire turned to face Nico.

“So, where’s the sword?” she asked.

He sighed. “Our cabin. Come on.” He began walking and Sapphire followed behind him.

And if she was smiling ecstatically as they went to get a deadly weapon, that’s her own business. 

* * *

Her sword was about a metre long, pitch black and slightly curved. Nico said it was called a ‘katana’ or a ‘samurai sword’. It was sharp only on the outside edge (the ‘outside’ being the outside of the curve) and was unbreakable from being dipped in the river Styx. The grip was decorated with a silver skull whose jaw faced towards the end of the sword and for some reason the black sheath was painted with blue roses.

Hades had given the sword the name of Θάνατος ταχεία which Sapphire had translated as ‘Swift Death’. 

* * *

“All right,” Nico said.

They had waked what Sapphire judged to be about half a mile into the woods. They had passed Brook the brook and followed a path to a clearing. The clearing had a mountain of rocks in it.

“Zeus’s Fist,” Sapphire guessed.

Nico nodded. “How’d you know?”

She rolled her eyes. “I read.” She pointed to herself. “The one demigod who’s not dyslexic.” Then she looked around. “This is where the Battle of the Labyrinth was. Are you sure it’s smart to train here?”

It was Nico’s turn to roll his eyes. “You don’t really believe it’s bad luck to be here do you?”

“As I recall you _passed out_ during that battle.”

“With great power comes great need to take a nap. And I was twelve!”

“You’re eighty!”

“Can we just fight?!”

“Aren’t we doing that?!”

“You know what I mean!”

“Fine!” Sapphire tossed her head and stepped two meters from her brother. “So, what do I do?”

Nico scowled. Apparently their argument had left him in a bit of a bad mood.

“Draw your sword,” he ordered.

Sapphire did so and waited as Nico walked around her.

“Move your feet...not like that!” It took ages for him to be happy with the way she was standing. Then he started nit-picking about the way she held Swift Death. “Katanas are made to be held with two hands. Put your dominant hand on top.” Finally he decided that she was ready for training. He took a few steps back and drew his own sword. “I’m going to attack you so just do...whatever.”

“Just do whatever,” Sapphire repeated. “Thanks Nico, that’s ever so helpful.”

He darted forward and before, she knew what was happening, had knocked her on the forest floor with his sword to her neck.

“Ow,” Sapphire said.

Nico rolled his eyes and stood. “Again,” he ordered.

Sapphire stood up and dusted herself off. She raised her sword and this time managed to block his attack. Their swords met with a CLANG! 

Sapphire was pretty proud of herself, then her brother kicked out and she was on her back again. She groaned. “Must you always knock me over?”

Nico helped her up. “Again.”

They repeated the exercise multiple times. Every time Sapphire ended up on her back in the dirt. Her hair came out of its braid and curled around her shoulders and face, making it harder to see. Finally, she’d had enough.

Instead of waiting for her brother to attack her she ran at him, and then jumped out of the way when he swung his sword. Swift Death seemed to guide her as she slashed and jumped. She rolled on one shoulder and came up behind Nico, grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him down. It would have worked perfectly except for one thing.

A purple flame shot out of her hand, hitting Nico who was flipped head over heels to the other side of the clearing.

She screamed and ran towards him, her hand still aflame.

Nico was sitting up when she reached him. “What on earth was that?” he demanded. 

Sapphire shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. I’ve...I’ve never done it before.” She blinked. “Why are the trees spinning?”

Nico frowned and looked at her hand. “See if you can put that out.”

Oh, right. Her hand was still on fire.

She concentrated, which was kinda hard to do with her head doing cartwheels, but she managed. Eventually she managed to get the ‘fire’ to stop ‘burning’. See, it didn’t seem to be real fire. The first clue was that it was purple, the same as her eyes. The second clue was that it was _cold,_ like, freezing. The third clue was that when a bird decided that it would be a good idea to land on her hand it dropped off a second later.

Dead.

Sapphire gapped at the robin and was finally able to turn her hand back to normal.

“Oh my gods,” she muttered, and sat down. “Oh my gods.”

Nico waved his hand in front of her face but she barely noticed. “Sapphire? Sapphire!”

She jumped. “What? I’m okay.”

“No you’re not,” Nico said. 

“Yes I am.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not!”

“Yes, I AM!”

“NO YOU’RE NOT!”

“WHY ARE WE YELLING?” someone else shouted.

Sapphire and Nico both jumped. They looked around and saw Leo standing by a tree.

“When did you get here?” Nico asked.

“Around the third ‘No you’re not’,” Leo admitted. “But I heard you way before then, all the way at Bunker Nine.”

Nico face palmed. “Is there a reason that you came all the way out here to see us?” he asked.

Leo shifted his feet. “Well, um. The _thing_ that you wanted me to work on, I finished it.”

Nico looked confused for a second then his eyes widened. “Seriously? The...it’s done?”

Sapphire looked between the two heroes. Then she stood up. “I should get going now.”

Nico immediately protested. “Are you sure that’s smart? I mean, there are monsters.”

She glared at him, “I’ll be fine.”

A voice spoke and Sapphire and Leo both jumped. “I could come with.”

Sapphire turned just in time to see a dryad come out of the tree near the pile of rocks.

Nico looked relived. “Juniper, it’s great to see you.”

Said tree-nymph blushed green. “It’s nice to see you too, Nico. Grover said some very nice things about you the other day.”

Leo laughed, causing Nico to stare at him. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend di Angelo?

Sapphire and Juniper stared at him. Finally, Sapphire cleared her throat. “Juniper is _Grover’s_ girlfriend.”

“Oh.” Leo looked slightly embarrassed. “I don’t spend much time with nature spirits.”

Juniper rolled her eyes. “That’s an understatement.”

Nico was still staring at Leo like he’d come from Mars. (The planet, not the god.) Then he pushed Juniper and his sister into the woods, roughly in the direction of camp. “You two go ahead.” He spoke to both of them but his eyes were on Sapphire. “I need to talk to Leo.”

Both of the girls (well technically they weren’t girls, but that’s not the point) looked confused, but they walked into the forest and back to camp. Sapphire headed to the guest house for the promised Latin classes and Juniper went to the Big House where Grover was waiting.


	4. Yet More Fire and a Tornado

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the following is an example of "tell, don't show" aka infodumps. Okay, maybe it's not as bad as I think it is. Maybe.

_Nico POV_

He turned to face Leo once his sister and Juniper had vanished into the trees. “What was that about?”

Leo kicked the ground, trying to suppress a grin. “What was what about?”

Nico rolled his eyes. “The smiling, the laughing. I haven’t seen you like that for months.”

Okay, short explanation for anyone who’s confused.

After the demigods won the Giant War, none of them acted like themselves. The population of both Camps were cut almost in half. A lot of people lost friends and family, some kids from New Rome became orphans after their parents died fighting.

The Seven took the war the hardest, especially Leo.

Where Percy, Jason, and Frank (who had gotten together officially with Hazel after the camps agreed to work together to stop the Giants), all had siblings or significant others with whom they were able to connect with on a greater depth over the war, Leo was still the seventh wheel. He escaped to Bunker Nine every chance he got, only showing up in the camp for meals and the campfire and sometimes not even then. He made less jokes and he got _annoyed_ that girls _wanted_ to date him now that he was a big hero and everything.

In short, Leo was most definitely not himself.

So why was he still trying to smother a laugh now?

“Leo, did the Stolls give you laughing gas cookies or something?” Nico asked warily.

“Nope, nope, nope.”

“You sound like Ella.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“For you, yes. What is going on?”

Leo stopped walking and Nico almost bumped into him.

“Your sister,” Leo started.

“If you say she’s hot I’m going to push you in the river,” Nico interrupted.

Leo pulled a face but he continued. “The fireworks are coming up...would you kill me if I asked her?”

Nico shrugged, and then he realized that Leo had his back to him. “Honestly man? She’s capable of beating you up herself seeing as you suck with a sword.”

Leo began walking again. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Nico sighed. “No, I would not kill you...unless she asked me to. And she probably won’t seeing as you’re her favorite.”

“Favorite of what?” Leo asked, confused.

“The Seven. It’s you, then Percy, Annabeth, Frank, Hazel, Piper and Jason. I don’t know why Jason’s last. Something about the Romans copying the Greeks and then meeting Frank.”

They were at the entrance to Bunker Nine now and Leo lit his hand on fire to open the door.“She told you this when?”

“Last night after the campfire, I didn’t really get much sense out of it.”

“Huh.” Leo walked over to a table and opened a drawer. “Well, here it is.”

Nico walked over to get a closer look.

In his hand Leo held a simple watch on a black leather band. Nico studied it intently.

“You’re sure it’ll work?” Nico asked.

“One hundred percent. Uh...maybe more like ninety-five percent, I haven’t tested it yet.”

Nico rolled his eyes. The device that Leo had made was _supposed_ to be able to alert him when there was an escaped soul in the area, the opening of the Doors of Death had let a lot of souls out and don’t even mention the extra paperwork, but if Leo hadn’t tested it then, well, there could be a problem.

“Here’s your chance.” Nico said.

Leo frowned. “Chance for what?”

“To ask Sapphire to the fireworks. I need to test this thing, so it’s your job to tell her that I’m going to New Orleans.”

There were plenty of ghosts there so escaped souls would have hoped to blend in. It was the perfect place to run a test. If the new device worked it would be able to lead him to an escapee. If it didn’t work it would a) go haywire and try to lead him to ghosts in all directions at one or b) explode, vaporize or something similar. 

Nico stepped backwards into the shadow of a tree. “Tell her I’ll be back in a few days.”

Leo shouted in alarm, but Nico was already gone.

He just hoped he had picked the right person to take care of his new sister.

* * *

_Sapphire POV_

She was in her cabin when she heard a knock on the door, Sapphire got up slowly to open it. She thought that it was Percy or Annabeth or both since no-one else ever came to the Hades Cabin, so she was surprised when she opened the door to find a guy with his head on fire.

“Leo?”

Leo blushed, which was hard to see under the raging flames but it was still visible.

“Your head is on fire.” Sapphire pointed out helpfully.

“Uh...” Leo pulled a bottle of water from his tool belt and upended it over his head. There was a hiss of steam as the fire was put out.

Sapphire saw the girl by the hearth outside, Lady Hestia, grin softly behind Leo’s back. Sapphire grinned to. This was why Leo was awesome.

Leo shook his head to dry his hair off.

“Uh...” he said again.

“You said that already,” Sapphire chirped.

“Right.” Leo rubbed the back of his neck. “Your...Uh... brother wanted me to tell you...Uh...”

“Spit it out.”

“He’s going to New Orleans.”

Sapphire blinked. “What! Why?”

“He’s working on something.”

“Great.” Sapphire leaned against the door frame. Just great. She needs to talk with him and he runs off to work on who-knows-what in another city.

_OK, time for plan B._

Leo was looking past her into the cabin. “What happened?”

Sapphire blushed. After her Latin lessons she had run back to her cabin (running over that Ares boy from before, if she saw him one more time she was going to punch him, maybe). Once there she had screamed into her pillow for a few moments and then decided to pull her luggage apart to try and find the gardening gloves she had packed. She did find the gloves but her cabin was, in short, a mess.

“Tornado Sapphire,” she replied. “Is there anything else? I kind of need to talk to Annabeth about something so...” She stepped out and closed the door.

“I’ll walk you,” Leo said quickly. “Cabin Six, right?”

“That is the Athena cabin right?” Sapphire began walking and Leo fell into step beside her.

“As far as I know.”

“Then that’s where I’m going.”

If Annabeth wasn’t in her cabin then Sapphire was going to check the Big House. She figured that Nico and Annabeth were the best people to help her figure out the whole ‘deathly flames’ thing, since Nico wasn’t here that left Annabeth.

But what on earth was he doing in New Orleans?

“What’s Nico working on?”

Leo started at her question, as if it had been a surprise. “Oh, uh...he’s testing something that he wanted me to make for him.”

“And he had to go all the way to New Orleans to do it?” Sapphire asked, surprised. “Why?”

Leo shrugged. “He didn’t tell me.”

“Huh.” Sapphire realized that they had stopped walking and were standing beside the fire. A little girl was looking up at them. Sapphire bowed. “Lady Hestia.”

“Our newest camper,” the goddess trilled. “Your brother was the only one to greet me you know.”

Sapphire smiled. “I know my lady.”

Leo bowed as well.

“Oh, no need for that.” Hestia smiled. “I should get going. This one has something to ask.” 

She faded away (not dying fading, vanishing fading) leaving Sapphire looking at Leo, confused. “What did she mean you have something to ask?”

Leo gulped. “Well, um...I was wondering if maybe...” He took a breath and said the rest really fast, so fast that she had trouble hearing him. “Do you want to go to the fireworks with me?”


	5. Sapphire Didn't Do the Assigned Reading

_Sapphire POV_

Sapphire wasn’t sure what to think. 

No, that’s not true. Her first thought was that there was not enough red for Canada Day, then she remembered that she was in America. 

Then she wasn’t sure what to think.

Leo Valdez was asking her to the fireworks.

Leo Valdez was asking her to the Fourth of July fireworks.

Leo Valdez was asking her to the Fourth of July fireworks, which Percy said was the largest dating event of the entire summer or something along those lines.

Inside her brain there were now thousands of little Sapphires, half of whom were shell-shocked and half of whom were shouting at her to _say yes already._

She was about to comply.

Then out of the corner of her eye she spotted _that Ares_ _boy_ , again! She growled and put her hand on her sword. She couldn’t go an hour without seeing him, could she? Forget punching him, he was going to get a blade in his gut!

Leo looked up from his hands (he had just finished making something out of copper wire that looked like a raven, but Sapphire could be sure). He seemed to notice that she was angry and slowly followed her gaze. When he saw the Ares kid he swore under his breath in Spanish. He made as if to pull both of them into the Athena cabin, which was the nearest, but the Ares kid was faster.

He strode up next to them with three wingmen. He flipped back Bieber -isque hair, smiled a crooked smile and said, “Hey sweetheart. How would you like to go to the fireworks with me?”

Sapphire looked at the boy with a (hopefully) bored look in her eyes. “And your name is...”

“Jeremy. Jeremy Asher, son of Ares. You’ve probably heard of me.” 

Sapphire was shocked. His name was, of all names, _Jeremy_? She shook herself and struggled to continue. “Well Jeremy Asher, I’m having a conversation with Leo Valdez at the moment. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Give me one second.”

She turned to Leo, who was looking at her with a, _what are you doing,_ expression on his face.

She smiled at him. “To answer your previous question: Yes Leo, I would love to go to the fireworks with you.”

She looked back to the Asher boy (she refused, absolutely refused to call him Jeremy). His face had been showing a shocked expression which quickly turned to anger.

“What did you want to ask?” Sapphire questioned, innocently. 

Asher scowled and without a word turned and walked away, his (assumed) siblings trailing after him.

“How rude.”

* * *

Sapphire knocked on the door of cabin six. Leo was standing next to her opening and closing his mouth soundlessly.

“Come in!” a girl shouted.

Sapphire opened the door and stepped inside dragging Leo after her.

“Shut the door please.” Annabeth was sitting at a table using a pair of pliers to adjust something inside her left arm.

Wow, that sounds weird.

Annabeth was sitting at a table using a pair of pliers to adjust something inside her _robotic_ left arm.

That doesn’t sound much better, oh well.

Her real arm had been completely crushed from the shoulder down during her time in Tartarus. The Apollo campers had replaced it with a standard prosthetic at first but once he had a spare second Leo had put together a celestial bronze mechanical creation that functioned much better than the plastic contraption had. 

Annabeth looked up from her work and her face brightened. “Leo! I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Uh…”

Sapphire rolled her eyes. “He’s been saying that a lot during the past few minutes.”

The daughter of Athena turned her gray eyes toward Sapphire, who cringed slightly. Those eyes were _way_ different to see in real life then to just read about. 

“You’re Nico’s sister,” Annabeth stated. “Sapphire, wasn’t it? What are you doing here?”

Sapphire choked. “Well…there was this thing with like fire, except it wasn’t fire and it killed a bird and I was going to ask Nico but he decided to run off to do who knows what in New Orleans something to do with our father probably so I though since he’s gone you’d be my best bet because of the whole Athena’s-your-mum thing and I’m going to take back that last part because I have no desire to be struck by lightning.”

She gasped.

Annabeth blinked. “Um…sit down and start over.”

Sapphire sat across from her and began her story from the beginning. Annabeth paid rapt attention while still managing to make modifications to her arm. Leo paced back and forth beside the table with a frown on his face.

Finally she finished. Annabeth closed the panel on her arm and stood up. She walked over to the hive of scrolls that were stacked by one table and pulled one out of its cubby. “I’ve heard about something like this before,” she said as she scanned the worn parchment. “Except by all accounts the ‘fire’ was black not purple.”

She frowned, replaced the scroll, and pulled out another. She looked over it then brought it back to their table, dodging Leo who was still pacing.

Annabeth unrolled the scroll. “Look at this.”

Sapphire leaned forward. The top of the parchment was dominated by an ink drawing of a man dressed in medieval armor who was surrounded by skeletons and holding a black sword flickering with even blacker flames. The rest of the two meter long scroll was filled with writing in Ancient Greek.

“Do I have to read all of that?”

Annabeth scowled and Sapphire quickly began reading. 

The book was about a son of Hades who had lived during the reign of King Henry the Sixth. He had taken out legions of knights (really monsters) during the Wars of the Roses using ‘the blackest fire of Hell’ and was hung as a witch soon after.

The book spanned from his childhood to his death. It was tedious to read because even though it was written in Ancient Greek the sentences were formatted in Old English with more wherefores and haths then Shakespeare’s plays. Sapphire managed to fumble her way through the whole thing, barely. She was just glad she hadn’t been asked to read it out loud.

“So you think that’s what I’ve got?” she asked Annabeth after she finished skimming the last paragraph.

“Well, it’s possible,” Annabeth replied. “Except for the colour issue…”Her eyes widened.

“What?” Sapphire asked.

“Colour,” Annabeth muttered. She rushed over to the shelves and pulled out a book that she replaced the scroll with. “These are pictures of all known children of the Big Three.”

The first picture was of Perseus, the first Perseus, saving Andromeda from the sea monster. After a few more pages there was a painting of Heracles slaying the Hydra. There was a daughter of Poseidon who saved her town from a flood, a son of Hades who had navigated the Labyrinth, and many others. Finally, the pictures reached the present.

The newest pictures had Nico and Bianca smiling in the hall of their school, Thalia outside of the Artemis cabin, and Percy dowsing himself in water by the canoe lake. There were still plenty of blank pages in the book.

“As interesting as that was…what was the point?” Sapphire asked.

“The eyes,” Annabeth said.

“What?”

“The eye colours,” Annabeth said slowly. She pulled the book towards her.

“Green.” She pointed to Percy’s picture.

“Blue.” She pointed to Thaila.

“Black.” She gestured to Nico and Bianca.

Then she pointed to Sapphire’s eyes. “Purple.”

Said eyes widened. “Oh so you think…”

“Yup.”

“That makes a lot of sense.”

The ‘fire’ that most children of Hades created (if they were able to) was black because their eyes were black. The ‘fire’ Sapphire created was purple because her eyes were purple.

It really did make a lot of sense.

And it was perfectly normal, though Sapphire thought she’d keep her gloves on just in case.

“Thanks Annabeth,” she said.

“Welcome.” The daughter of Athena was absorbed in her prosthetic again. “Leo, could you stop pacing and help me with this?”

The son of Hephaestus stopped abruptly. Sapphire had almost forgotten he was there. As he fiddled inside another panel, this time on the wrist of the arm, Sapphire looked at the place where he had been pacing.

There was a noticeable ditch in the flooring.

She wondered what on earth he had been thinking about. 


	6. Are We Sure the Stolls Weren't Pranking Everyone?

_Sapphire’s POV_

That night at the campfire, Sapphire was still trying to figure out what could have held Leo’s attention for so long. Eventually she decided that he must have been thinking of some sort of machine that he was building, perhaps something to help the demigods who had been injured during the Giant War or a safer way to travel between Camp Half-blood and Camp Jupiter. She was about to cross to the other side of the fire to ask him, but before she could even get up her path was blocked by two boys with cunning grins. The Stoll brothers.

“Look Conner, it’s Nico’s sister!” said the taller of the two sons of Hermes.

“I see, Travis! Just the person we were looking for as well!”

Sapphire put a hand to her belt to make sure her sword was still there (because who knows what the Stolls would steal). “Hey. Travis, Conner you were looking for me?” she asked.

“Why-” Travis started.

“-yes!” Conner finished. They continued like this so that Sapphire was looking back and forth between them like she was at a tennis match.

“You see-”

“-we were wondering-”

“-if perhaps-”

“-you wouldn’t mind-”

“-aiding us with-”

“-a-”

“-prank!”

Sapphire blinked. “Uh, that depends. Who are you pranking?”

“Your-”

“-brother!”

Of course they were. Shame Nico wasn’t here.

Sapphire opened her mouth to tell them but then they stepped back with a gasp.

“Oh my gods!” they said together, looking above her head.

What?

Sapphire rolled her eyes up to see a holographic red pomegranate floating above her head.

That was not normal. She had already been claimed.

More of the campers were noticing now and soon the campfire was silent. Everyone was staring at her.

Chiron stood, exchanging a look with Annabeth.

Sapphire could see why that annoyed Percy. It was like they were having a full conversation in one look. 

“Hail Sapphire Banks,” Chiron said slowly, “daughter of Persephone.”

Nope, definitely not normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To quote my original author's note for this chapter, "And that wraps up the very short filler chapter."


	7. News Nobody Wants (Not Annabeth, or Odysseus. Really Nobody)

_Sapphire POV_

The next morning she headed to the Athena cabin, again. People steered clear of her like she was a plague. Being a child of Hades was something they could get acclimated to. Having two godly parents evidentially warranted mass avoidance. 

Sapphire heard two distinct voices as she reached Cabin Six. She knocked on the door and they halted. There was a tapping of footsteps and the door was opened by Annabeth. Percy was behind her. Neither of them looked surprised to see her.

“Come in,” Annabeth said, opening the door wider.

“Why do I feel like you were just talking about me?” Sapphire joked as she entered.

Annabeth and Percy looked at each other warily.

“I’m joking,” Sapphire said. 

_‘Yeash, two wars against formally mythical monsters and they take everything seriously.’_ Sapphire thought, but then she berated herself. ‘ _Being claimed twice has messed with my head.’_

“I guess you know why I’m here.” She began pacing. Intense battle reflexes, ADHD, sucked at times like this.

Annabeth began to pull books from the selves without a word. Percy sat down in the chair Sapphire had occupied the day before. As Sapphire turned around her sword hit the chair’s leg, causing Percy to jump.

“Can’t you put that away?” he asked.

For a moment Sapphire was confused. Then she realized that he meant for her to put away her sword. Then she was confused again.

“How?” It wasn’t like she had a pen cap to put on the end of it.

“I don’t know. Didn’t Nico teach you anything?”

Ouch. Percy had a bad few years, but still. Ouch.

Sapphire bent her head to examine the hilt of her sword. And to avoid spitting out a retort that she’d regret later. There wasn’t anything that seemed able to help except the silver skull on the end. Seeing as there really wasn’t anything else to do (since Annabeth was still running around collecting books) she started to fiddle with the adornment.

Pushing it gave no results, as did pulling it. When she attempted to twist it to the right it wouldn’t budge. Finally, she tried a counter clockwise turn. The skull moved easily with a small clicking sound. Her entire sword then seemed to be absorbed into the shrinking silver skull. Swift Deaths’ scabbard also shrunk until Sapphire was left holding a silver skull ring and a very particular necklace. The chain was choker length and thick for a girl. There were three charms hanging from it, two claw-shaped black stones either side of an arrowhead shaped clear stone. As she spent plenty of time working in her parents’ shop, a combination jewelry and flower store, Sapphire could easily identify the stones as onyx and diamond. Upon closer inspection she saw that the onyx was carved with a pattern of vines on one and a crowned skull on the other.

“Wow,” Percy said flatly, since really nothing could surprise him anymore. “That’s what you get if your dad’s the god of riches I guess.”

“Riptide is cooler,” Sapphire said, “Though that might be because it’s the first magic sword I ever heard of.” 

Percy gave her a small smile. “Nice of you to say.”

“I aim to please.”

Annabeth had finally collected all of the scrolls, books, and albums that she wanted. As she placed them on the table there was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it.” Sapphire put on her new jewelry and walked to open the door.

Standing outside was a satyr that was not wielding a club and wearing a ‘Got Hooves?’ t-shirt so Sapphire assumed that it was Grover. 

“Hi.” She smiled.

“Hello,” the satyr replied.

Percy stood up when he saw who was at the door. “Hey, G-man. What’s up?”

The satyr, Grover, chewed nervously on his shirt. “Oh, nothing much. I have to go for a meeting on Olympus and Z…your uncle wants me to bring the new camper with.”

Sapphire waved. “Hi, new camper here. Do you know what’s wrong?”

“They probably want to vote on if you should be allowed to live or something,” Percy said woodenly. 

“It’s not even the Solstice yet!”

“I doubt they brought out the entire council.” Annabeth had dumped her armful of books on the table and was standing behind Percy with a frown on her face. “It’s still a bit odd though.”

Sapphire rolled her eyes. “I can think of at least three gods that probably want me dead.” 

She had decided (in the minute that Grover had made his announcement) that Zeus, Demeter and Athena were the most likely to want to kill her. Zeus, for obvious reasons, Demeter, because Sapphire was a product of the marriage that she richly disapproved, and Athena, because she’d probably decide that Sapphire was ‘unpredictable’ or something like that.

Percy, Annabeth and Grover stared at her. She should probably have sounded a bit more worried than she did.

“Let’s get going,” she insisted. “It’s no good us just standing around.”

She turned to Annabeth.

“I’ll look at your research when I get back?” She hadn’t meant for that to become a question.

Annabeth sighed. “Fine, it’s not good to keep the gods waiting.”

Sapphire nodded.

Grover coughed and was met with questioning looks from the three demigods (ok, two demigods and one possible godling). “About that...You might want to take ten minutes to grab a coat. A _warm_ coat.”

Annabeth and Percy looked concerned while Sapphire showed confusion.

“Is it as bad as that?” Annabeth asked. Grover nodded.

Sapphire looked back and forth between them. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.” She stated walking towards the door, “But, tell you what, I’ll meet you on Half-blood Hill in ten. OK?”

Grover nodded. Then he bit his lip. “You might want a winter hat too.”

Sapphire sighed. “Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of at the moment,” Grover replied, nibbling his shirt.

“Fine. Fifteen minutes. And you get to explain what the heck you’re talking about on the way to Olympus. Deal?” She extended her gloved hand to shake on it.

Grover looked nervously at Percy and Annabeth, who both nodded. He gulped and shook her hand. “Deal.”


	8. Ignorance Can Be Useful

_Sapphire's POV_

It took exactly ten minutes for Sapphire to ‘borrow’ Nico’s aviators’ jacket (since she hadn’t brought a warm coat of her own), change into combat boots and buy an orange toque from the camp store. By the time she made it to Half-Blood Hill, Grover was already waiting. He had changed into a puffy winter coat but his shaggy legs were still showing. Apparently the Mist would be covering for him. Sapphire ran up to Thalia’s tree, carrying ‘her’ coat and sticking the few leftover drachmas into the pocket of her jeans. 

“Hey,” she said as she stopped next to the nervous satyr. 

“Hey,” he replied, chewing on a tin can he was carrying with him.

“Explain,” she ordered.

“Maine is very nice this time of year,” he muttered. “Unlike New York.”

Sapphire could only assume that that had something to do with the weather and not the absence of major gods in Maine. She stayed quiet while she waited for Grover to continue. He didn’t say anything until one of the camp’s strawberry delivery vans pulled up.

“A few cabins will be unhappy if they hear this…” He walked to the van and opened the door. “Ladies first.”

Sapphire climbed into the back of the van and bucked up. Then she waited, again, for Grover to start talking. She wondered idly what could be so disastrous that the weather could be so utterly messed up. Finally, Grover took a deep breath and began to explain. By the time he was done Sapphire was ten seconds away from asking Argus to stop the van so she could throw up and Grover himself looked like he wanted to be sick. Here’s the short version.

Three demigod girls had gone missing, a daughter of Boreas, a daughter of Apollo, and a daughter of Demeter. They went missing one at a time and were each found by mortals the week after they went missing. Dead. To make it worse, they couldn’t be judged in the Underworld because they were missing, well, parts of themselves. For one, the daughter of Apollo was drained of blood. (Sapphire refused to think about the other two because if she did she was quite sure she’d vomit, moving van or not.) As a result, Boreas, Apollo and Demeter were extremely angry and, as it wasn’t known for _sure_ who murdered their daughters, they were taking their anger out on New York City, hence the bizarre weather. What freaked out Sapphire the most (or maybe the least-most, it was hard to tell at that point) was that each of the girls had been dating Jeremy Asher before they vanished. And were found. Dead. 

It was a good thing that after Grover finished explaining the van pulled up to the Empire State Building. Sapphire could worry about the gods who could blast her to dust instead of the demigods that had been murdered. 

Leaving Argus to guard the van and battling ice cold winds that were completely contrary to the blazing sun, the two of them made their way towards the doors of the Empire State. The lobby was almost empty, probably thanks to the bizarre weather, so they faced minimal resistance as they made their way towards the desk of the security guard who, predictably, had his head buried in a book. Grover coughed and the guard looked up at them with tired eyes. “May I help you?”

“We have to go up to the top floor,” Grover told him, and then he leaned forward and said quietly, “The _very_ top.”

The guard looked a bit concerned. “Name and parentage, please.” 

“Grover Underwood, satyr and…” he trailed off as he realized he didn’t know Sapphire’s full name.

“Sapphire Banks,” she supplied as she made a quick decision, “Daughter of Persephone.” 

She figured it wouldn’t be very helpful if the guard was freaking out. He looked at her ring and jacket and raised an eyebrow. “Whatever you say kid.” He handed Grover a key card. “Make sure no one’s in the elevator with you,” he reminded them.

“Thanks.” Sapphire said, but he had already gone back to reading.

The elevator was empty when Sapphire and Grover climbed in. Grover inserted the key card and pressed the button for the six-hundredth floor.

“Any advice?” Sapphire asked him, as ‘Staying Alive’ starting playing. Note: the song wasn’t doing anything to help calm her down.

“Don’t act like Percy,” Grover suggested. “Bow a lot. Be respectful. Try not to get blasted to dust.”

“Thanks,” Sapphire muttered. “Oh look, it’s our floor.”

The doors of the elevator opened and Sapphire couldn’t help gasping as she got her first look at Olympus. Spectacular was too tame a word to describe it. Grover had to literally pull her out of the elevator before the doors closed because she was too busy staring.

“Come on,” he insisted. “It’s not good to keep the gods waiting.”

They made their way through the streets towards the throne room. A few nature spirits and minor gods greeted Grover enthusiastically. Sapphire, however, was greeted with silence. Since they weren’t actively trying to get away from her, Sapphire declared the silence an improvement over the reaction at camp.

Finally, they reached the door of the throne room. 

“ENTER!” a voice boomed. 

Sapphire looked at Grover nervously. “I’m guessing you can’t come?” she whispered.

Grover shook his head.

“Well, wish me luck.” The doors opened and Sapphire entered the throne room of the gods.

* * *

Contrary to Annabeth’s predictions, the entire Olympian council was seated in the throne room. Even Hestia was present, tending to the fire.

Sapphire gulped. She was so dead.

“Sapphire Banks,” said the god siting directly in front of her. She looked up, saw his piercing blue eyes, and immediately bowed.

“Lord Zeus,” she all but squeaked.

“No need to be afraid dear,” Hestia said clearly from her place at the hearth.

“We’re all family here,” Hera told her while she herself glared at her husband.

Sapphire was pretty sure that most families didn’t have meetings to decide whether or not to have a member of their family blasted to dust.

“Yes.” Zeus coughed. “Sapphire Banks, please state the names of your parents for the council. 

She bowed again. “Which parents, lord Zeus?”

“Godly parents,” Zeus replied.

Sapphire gulped. “Hades and Persephone, my lords and ladies.”

A murmuring came from the assembled gods and Sapphire suddenly felt as if she had walked in during the middle of a conversation.

“See, she admits it,” Athena said, her harsh grey eyes studying Sapphire intently.

Aphrodite squealed. “How wonderful!”

Artemis seemed to be congratulating Demeter. Dionysus was sipping from his can of Diet Coke and glaring. Hephaestus seemed to be having an argument with Apollo and Hermes. Ares was muttering to himself and Zeus, Poseidon and Hera were having a very animated conversation. In the middle of all of this Hestia caught Sapphire’s eye and nodded reassuringly. 

“SILANCE!” Zeus shouted at last. All of the talk died down. “Do you have anything to say, Sapphire Banks?” he asked.

Sapphire took a deep breath. “I have no clue how I ended up with two godly parents. Please just cast your votes and get it over with.” She winched as she realized that what she said had verged into Percy territory. However, the gods didn’t seem to be too annoyed.

“Fine,” Zeus decided. “Who votes for Sapphire Banks to live?”

Hera and Artemis raised their hands immediately. They were followed shortly after by Demeter and Aphrodite.

“Old Corpse Breath doesn’t deserve to lose another kid,” Dionysus muttered and he raised his hand. 

“We can wait,” Athena decided and her hand went up.

Hephaestus seemed to agree with both Dionysus and Athena as he raised his hand. Poseidon also voted for Sapphire to live. 

Sapphire let out a breath she hadn’t know she had been holding. A majority, even though they weren’t done voting yet. She would live, for now.

Ares muttered something that sounded like “Don’t disappoint me kid.” as he lifted his hand. 

“I don’t think she’ll be trouble,” Apollo decided as he voted yes to letting her live. 

Hermes elbowed him. “You just think she’s cute,” he chided as he raised his hand. Apollo and Sapphire both blushed.

Zeus looked at the raised hands around him. “Majority rules,” he grumbled. Then he stood abruptly. “We will have a thirty minute break before we discuss our next issue,” he decided, and then he vanished in a flash of lighting that left spots darting across Sapphire’s vision.

The other gods began to exit the throne room in a less blinding manner then Zeus. Athena was the first to stop and talk to Sapphire. “Do not give us reason to re-think this decision,” she told her. Sapphire just nodded as Poseidon joined them. Athena seemed to be only slightly miffed by his presence.

“Lord Poseidon,” Sapphire bowed her head.

“None of that,” he ordered. “I am not my brother.” He looked around, and then asked, “Is my son alright?”

Sapphire blinked. “Percy? He’s…well I think he’s better. I wouldn’t really know since I wasn’t here for…” she trailed off.

“But you’ve read of him,” Athena insisted. Sapphire nodded. “And my daughter?” Sapphire nodded again. “Is she well?”

“Annabeth seems fine. Busy, but fine.” Athena nodded and without another word walked out. Poseidon gave Sapphire a kind smile and then he also left.

Apollo and Artemis also decided to talk to her.

“You are brave,” Artemis decided as they walked over. “You could be a huntress.” She handed Sapphire a sliver pamphlet. Sapphire looked down at the paper and she had to admit to being tempted. She remembered Leo and how Nico had already lost a sister to the hunters. She forced herself to put the pamphlet in her pocket.

“I’ll think about it,” she promised.

Apollo also handed her a piece of paper. “Call me.” He winked and Artemis slapped him.

“Gods have cell phones?” Sapphire asked as she put the paper into her pocket beside Artemis’ pamphlet.

“Why wouldn’t we?” The twins nodded their goodbyes and left the throne room.

A hand landed on Sapphire’s shoulder and she spun around, her one day of training taking effect.

Demeter looked at her, stone-faced. “We need to talk.”


	9. Gods Don't Get Humans, But Sometimes They're Good Parents

_Sapphire’s POV_

As Demeter led her outside, away from the great hall, Sapphire was sure she was going to end up as a patch of cereal (the plant not the food). Technically, she would still be alive. Technically. As they neared a temple, she wondered how far she might be able to run before her aunt/grandmother blasted her to bits.

“Sit,” Demeter ordered, gesturing to a stone bench. Sapphire sat quickly. “Oh, calm down,” Demeter chided, taking a seat herself. “I’m not going to turn you into corn.”

“I was worried about being turned into grain actually,” Sapphire muttered.

Demeter smiled sadly. “Don’t be silly, my daughter wouldn’t speak to me for eons if I brought harm to you. You’re her only demigod child, after all. Besides, after what happened to my dear Rose…” 

Sapphire blinked as she remembered what Grover had told her. “My lady, I’m very sorry for your lose.”

Demeter waved her off. “You are not at fault child. In fact, the council will be discussing the matter next.” She looked Sapphire in the eye. “Apollo isn’t having an easy time either. Do promise you’ll call the boy? Give him something else to think about? All the plants in Central Park are dying because he’s driving the sun to close to the ground, looking for the people who killed our daughters. It is sweet of him, but the dryads are getting rather annoyed.”

Sapphire blinked again. “Is that what the meeting Grover is in is about? The plants in Central Park?” She couldn’t really imagine that a meeting would be called on Olympus for that.

“Not completely. I believe they’re discussing what to do about a fire in Colorado that’s destroyed a few hundred square miles of forest.” Sapphire nodded, there had been something on the news about that, but she still couldn’t really understand why the meeting had to be on Olympus. She then jumped back to what Lady Demeter had asked.

“I do promise I’ll IM Lord Apollo,” she told the goddess. “That’s all though.” Even though she was flattered by the attention he’d given her, he was a god and gods got bored quickly. Besides, she wouldn’t want to hurt Leo’s feelings. “Is that everything you wanted to talk about my lady?”

Demeter raised an eyebrow. “My dear child, I’ve barely started.” She waved her hand and a table popped up on front of them. On it appeared a plate of teacakes, butter, jam and a tea set. There was also, for some reason, a small bowl filled with grains of wheat. Demeter poured two cups of tea and handed one to Sapphire. Taking a sip she said, “Let me tell you why you’re a demigod and not a goddess.”

* * *

“It was springtime, March, when your mother discovered she was pregnant with you. She tried to hide it for a long time, thinking that I would be angry with her. I must admit that I didn’t take it well but she ran off before I could apologize. 

“Goddesses don’t remain pregnant for nine months like mortal women; we carry our children for only three months before they are born. She managed to evade me until August, two months after you were born. I would have found her sooner but she was hiding with Eileithyia during your birth so any signs of a godling being born were muffled. You were not with her and she told me that she had hidden you in a way that only she or your father would be able to find you. I thought that you were in the Underworld and I begged her to let me raise you during the winter, the Underworld is no place to raise a child! She said that would be impossible, that she wouldn’t even be raising you. The poor dear burst into tears then and that was the end of that fight. 

“Later, I learned that she, Eileithyia and Thantos had worked out a plan to hide you from _all_ the other gods, not just me. As you can imagine Zeus wasn’t thrilled that Hades would be having a child, even a fully godly one. The others…well, let’s say quite a few of them had their own reasons to want you gone at the time. 

“Eileithyia, she’s the goddess of childbirth, worked with Thantos to see when there would be a baby girl being born who was supposed to die soon after. They concentrated on North America because Persephone and Hades both wanted to keep an eye on you. When they found the child they used their powers to bind together the souls of you and the mortal child. By doing this the two of you became one child, a demigod child. The mortal parents didn’t know of course, they just thought that there had been a miracle of sorts, their daughter, whom they had been told would die, was as healthy and lively as her twin sister.

“Your mother and father did watch over you. In fact, I believe one of your teachers is a dryad. They were bound by the Ancient Laws not to interfere though so when you had…troubles they could only watch. Eventually the wars came and they had to turn their time elsewhere. Since the Camps have been rebuilt Hades decided it was time to introduce you to the rest of your family. He sent Nico to fetch you and, well, here you are.”

* * *

After Demeter finished talking, the two of them sat in silence.

“But, why didn’t he send for me sooner?” Sapphire asked at last. “I was thirteen during the Giant War, I could have helped.” There were so many who had died during that war. Having another child of the Big Three, even one without much training, could have changed a lot.

Demeter didn’t answer but another voice spoke. “I didn’t want that for you, daughter. We had enough demigods to fight the war.” 

Sapphire looked up. The goddess was tall and thin with shining black hair and warm brown eyes. Her long dress was patterned with flowers and a gold band curled around her upper left arm.

“Mother,” Sapphire acknowledged. She bowed her head.

“Oh, my dear girl!” Persephone wrapped Sapphire in a hug that was so overwhelming that it caused the demigod to drop her teacup. Fortunately, a puff of grass grew up and caught it before it broke.

Persephone released Sapphire, leaving her gasping for breath. For a minor goddess her mother sure had a strong grasp. “Let me look at you! Oh, you look so like your father, but you have my winter eyes.” Persephone smiled and sat down. Sapphire was still trying to breath.

“You’re out of your meeting early,” Demeter noted. “Is everything sorted?”

“Of course, mother. A few of the wind spirits will be blowing a rainstorm over the fire tomorrow. Once it goes out we’ll start with planting trees and moving a few dryads to oversee the cleanup.”

Sapphire was finally able to fill her lungs again. “So that’s why the meeting was on Olympus,” she muttered to herself. Then she coughed, causing the two goddesses to look over at her.

“I don’t mean to be rude my ladies—” 

“Mother.” “Grandmother.” Persephone and Demeter interrupted.

Sapphire nodded in acknowledgement. “I don’t mean to be rude, but if your meeting is over then it’s probably time for me to go. Argus drove both Grover and I here and I’d hate to make him wait for me.”

Persephone began to protest but her mother’s hand on her wrist silenced her.

“Of course you shouldn’t keep the boys waiting,” Demeter agreed. “The council meeting will be starting again soon. I shall say my goodbyes now.” She stood and gave both her daughter and granddaughter gentle hugs. Then she walked away from the temple and up to the Great Hall, almost colliding with Grover on her way out. Grover stuttered an apology, which she waved off. Then she was gone.

Grover looked and Sapphire and Persephone, who were sitting side by side on the bench. “I don’t mean to interrupt my lady,” he said, “but your daughter and I have to head back to Camp.”

Persephone nodded and she and Sapphire both stood. “I will walk with you to the bridge,” the goddess decided.

The trio walked through the streets towards the bridge. The gazes cast towards them were more friendly and curious then they had been previously. A few minor gods and spirits even came over to greet them. Sapphire though that she caught a glimpse of Hephaestus walking near a market stall, but when she looked back he was nowhere in sight. At last, they reached the bridge. Persephone gave Sapphire a hug, and then kissed her once on each cheek. The kisses glowed gold and burned for a moment before fading. 

“A parting gift,” Persephone said, in response to Sapphire’s blinking. “It was wonderful to finally meet you, daughter.” The goddess vanished in a swirl of flowers.

Sapphire and Grover made it into the elevator before Sapphire was able to speak. “Should I be worried about that last bit?” she squeaked to the satyr.

Grover shook his head as Michael Jackson’s "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" played in the background. Sapphire thought idly that it really was _sad_ that she was able to name that song. Blame her dad. He had all Michael Jackson’s albums and, just because it annoyed Amber, he played them every time the twins worked in the shop.

“Your mother wouldn’t do anything to intentionally harm you,” he told her. The music grew slightly louder and Sapphire had the sneaking suspicion that Apollo had chosen the song personally.

“ _Intentionally,”_ Sapphire repeated. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

“It can’t be any worst then shooting death from your hands,” Grover replied.

Sapphire raised an eyebrow. “How do you know about that?”

“Juniper told me,” Grover said innocently.

“Are we playing the blame game now?” Sapphire muttered as the doors dinged open and Michael Jackson’s singing chased them into the almost empty lobby and out to the waiting van. Something wet hit Sapphire in the face. As she looked up she realized that it was definitely a good thing that the entire godly council was meeting to figure out what to do about the murders. It was July the third, the sun was shining, the birds were singing… 

And it was snowing.

Sapphire and Grover both ducked quickly into the van. Argus nodded hello and started the engine. 

They sat in silence, Grover wondering if snow would put out a forest fire as much as rain would, Sapphire trying to digest everything she had learned on Olympus.

By the time they reached Half-Blood Hill reporters were out in swarm, filming as Manhattan was covered in a thick blanket of snow.


	10. The Results of Research

_Sapphire’s POV_

As promised, when they returned to Camp, Sapphire headed back to the Athena cabin to have a look at the papers Annabeth had pulled. Surprisingly (or maybe not), Annabeth was still in her cabin, engrossed in a very thick scroll. She barely looked up from it as she opened the door to let Sapphire in. The books that she had dumped on the table before Grover and Sapphire had left were still there and, with a nod from Annabeth, Sapphire sat down and began to read. By the time she was done, the information that was bouncing around in her head was pretty much what Demeter had told her. Death and magic and mortals and godlings and all that jazz. A section of one of the books did mention a son of Aphrodite and Hephaestus who had become a demigod, come to Camp, and then gone out on a quest and died protecting his friends from a dragon. Then, apparently, he became the god of jewellery-making instead of going to Elysium. Sapphire figured there was a ninety-nine point three percent chance of the same thing happening to her if she died a hero’s death. Sapphire rolled her shoulders and shut the last book.

“Your mother asked after you,” she told Annabeth, who looked up from the blueprints she was drawing. 

“What did she say?” she asked.

“She just wanted to know how you are,” Sapphire replied. “I said ‘busy but fine’, _placante tibi_?”

Annabeth blinked. “You speak Latin?”

_“paulum,_ a little. I’m only done level one.” 

“I’m quite sure ‘ _placante tibi’_ is level two,” Annabeth said. 

Sapphire shrugged. “Rella and Ryan, two of the Romans, they’ve been tutoring me.” Sapphire stood and took some of the books to the shelves at the back of the cabin. “Where do these go?”

Annabeth stood as well and the two of them started putting away all the books that Sapphire had been reading. “Well,” Annabeth said, looking at a clock on the wall, “I have a history class to teach.”

Sapphire also looked at the clock. 2:30 p.m., the lunch stuff would be cleaned up already. That was a shame since all she had eaten at breakfast was a cup of green tea and a granola bar. She had almost burnt her throat with the tea too. Asher had _innocently_ decided to eat breakfast at the same time as her. She had glared at him, trying not to show fear, and he had given an evil grin back. That was enough to have her gulping down her breakfast and rushing back to Cabin Thirteen to clean up the remains of Tornado Sapphire before cabin inspection.

“I have ‘Free Choice’ I think,” she told Annabeth. “Any recommendations?” 

“Arts and Crafts is always interesting. And I think Percy is there now,” Annabeth said.

“Interesting in a mortal way or interesting in a demigod way?” Sapphire asked. “Demigod way, just so you know, means something is likely to blow up.”

“A little bit of both.” Annabeth turned away to shelve a fat scroll. “You’ll be safe at least.”

Sapphire stopped shelving and turned to face the daughter of Athena. “Safe?”

Annabeth nodded with her back still to Sapphire. “The Ares Cabin has single combat. Jeremy Asher will be fighting Clarisse so you don’t have to worry about him. We’ve got some of the more inconspicuous nymphs keeping an eye on him as well.”

Sapphire crossed her arms. “This is about the murders isn’t it?” Annabeth didn’t confirm or deny, so Sapphire pressed on. “Is there a reason that you or Percy or Leo didn’t think to tell me _anything_? This would be why Leo was so preoccupied yesterday. Asher asked me to the fireworks, suggesting that if he is responsible I’m his next target.” Annabeth continued putting away books in silence. “I’m all for innocent until proven guilty but three girls are _dead_ and you haven’t even detained a suspect? The way Grover told it _everyone_ thinks Asher did it but you’re still letting him walk free! Why?” Sapphire was yelling now. 

Annabeth finally turned around having put away all the books. “First of all there is a reason for not telling you ‘anything’. We have a plan but you can’t know about the specifics because you’re ‘his next target’, as you put it. Second of all, despite evidence to the contrary, everyone at Camp doesn’t know everyone else’s business. Only the Demeter and Apollo cabins and the senior counselors know of the connection between Jeremy and the murders and they’re all under orders to keep quiet. The daughter of Boreas who was killed was the only demigod child of Lord Boreas so she doesn’t have any siblings who are out for Asher’s blood. Are you happy now?”

Sapphire and Annabeth stood toe to toe for a few moments. Then Sapphire sighed.

“If you have a hand in whatever plan’s been made then I know that it will work. If I have to be bait then I trust that plan doesn’t end with me moving in with my sisters in the Underworld.” She looked to Annabeth with apology. “I’m sorry for venting my anger at you. It’s just that I feel so out of the loop. I didn’t even get the regular orientation since I’ve read all of Percy’s books.”

Annabeth nodded in sympathy. “How about this? You can sit in on head counselors' meetings. You’re the only demigod daughter of Persephone anyway so you should be allowed to be there. You’ll have to leave if we’re going to talk about the plan, but you get to have input on everything else.”

Sapphire nodded. “I can live with that. And I think I’ll take your other advice to.”

“What advice do you mean?” Annabeth asked. 

Sapphire cracked a smile. “Arts and Crafts is very safe this time of year.”

* * *

“Ouch!” Sapphire said. She put her burnt pinky into her mouth and glared at the celestial bronze pyrography tool in her right hand. Using fire-drawing to decorate a silver pendent for her sister so said sister felt less angry/upset/deserted had seemed like a better idea before she burnt herself for the third time. She looked around carefully and, as the only person who was paying attention to her was Percy, she hid her burnt pink finger under the table and concentrated to light a small purple flame to cool it off. When she put the flame out Percy spoke.

“You’re getting better at that.” 

Sapphire raised her eyebrows innocently. “Better at burning myself? Definitely.”

Percy rolled his eyes and went back to using his powers to direct the liquid in the bucket he was using for tie-dyeing a t-shirt. Sapphire flexed her cramped fingers and went back to drawing vines and flowers in the pendant, really hoping that she wouldn’t burn herself again.

Since this was Camp Half-Blood there wasn’t much in the way of safety equipment except for armor, eye goggles and ginormous metalworkers’ gloves. Sapphire was not a Hephaestus kid so she didn’t have the dexterity to handle a small pendant while wearing big gloves. She had taken her gardening gloves off so she didn’t burn holes in the only set of gloves she’d brought.

Admittedly not the best idea on her part. 

Sapphire drew another petal then, somehow, the tool slipped and landed on the table. She lifted it up quickly but it had already burnt a hole almost through the table. She muttered nonsense curses under her breath. “I give up.”

“Why would you do that?” said a voice behind her. Sapphire twisted around in her seat and pointed the blue-hot writing tool in the direction of the person who had snuck up behind her.

Leo held his hands up in the air in mock surrender as Sapphire blushed.

“Uh…Sorry about that,” she said, lowering the tool. “I’m having a crazy day.”

“Yah, Olympus. Annabeth told me.” Leo sat on the bench next to her and nodded to Percy across the table. “Sup?”

“My uncle, the wind gods, various air spirits,” Percy replied.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Leo was behind me?” Sapphire asked him.

Percy shrugged. “Didn’t think it was necessary.” He pulled his tie-dye project out of the dye and stood up. “I’m gonna go hang this up.” He walked outside, leaving Sapphire and Leo sitting in comfortable silence.

“You want some help with that?” Leo asked, nodded to the pendant.

“Please?” Sapphire cracked a smile. “Apparently I’m all thumbs at the moment. I’ve burnt myself three times.”

“You just have to put the right amount of pressure on the metal. Like this.” Leo put his hand over top of Sapphire’s and together they burnt a curved vine into the surface of the pendant. “See?”

Sapphire nodded and began drawing again. “Any specific reason you’ve come here? Other than to stop me from burning down the building I mean.”

Leo grinned. “You’d have a hard time with that. Even I can’t burn solid marble.”

“You’d be surprised at what I can do. Once, Ed and I knocked over a shed.”

Leo blinked. “You and who what?” he asked.

“Ed, my best friend, and I knocked over a shed,” Sapphire repeated, sticking her tongue out as she finished drawing the second flower.

“How did you manage that?”

“We ran into it while riding a two person bike. It really wasn’t that difficult.”

Leo sat in silence as he mulled this over. Sapphire finished a third flower and drew more curving vines to fill a bit more of the blank space. Percy still hadn’t returned.

“I wanted to see how you were,” Leo said eventually.

Sapphire’s mouth twitched. “That’s sweet of you. As you can see, I’m alive.” Sapphire finished what she deemed the last vine and flicked the off switch on the burning tool.

“That’s not really what I meant,” Leo said. 

“I know. I’m okay. I mean, I yelled at Annabeth a bit. The entire Olympian council had a vote on whether to let me live, my mother gave me some sort of gift that will probably come to light in a few hours and may or may not result in physical or mental injury, my maternal grandmother told me a story that made my head spin, and I got a few offers from a certain pair of twin gods that I have to give a lot of thought to but other than that I’m one-hundred percent.” Sapphire looked at Leo, who was staring at her with a look that she couldn’t quite place.

“Too much?” she asked.

Leo shook his head. “No, no. Gods you met a lot of…gods.” Sapphire nodded. “The twins would be Apollo and Artemis?” Sapphire nodded again. “And the offers were?” Leo sounded a bit nervous now.

Sapphire smiled at him gently. “An invitation to the hunt, and a phone number. You can guess which was from whom.”

Leo tensed as she spoke and sparks sputtered from his neck. “And you…?” he started.

Sapphire put a finger to his lips. “I promised that I’d think about the hunt. I have and I can’t. I can’t leave Nico or Ed or …or you.” Sapphire whispered the end so only Leo heard. Anyone who was watching would have seen both of them blushing. 

“And Apollo?” Leo asked.

“I promised Grandmother Demeter that I’d call him, but nothing more,” she replied. “Gods need friends to and with what’s happened well…Demeter thought I might help distract him.”

Leo let out the air he’d been holding. Sapphire smiled at him while she pulled her gloves back on.

“My turn to ask a question now.” She held up the finished pendant. “Any ideas what chain I could use for this?”


	11. Just a Normal Day at Camp Half-Blood

_Sapphire’s POV_

They ended up spending the rest of the day together. Sapphire was still officially ‘getting lost’ as it was her second day at camp, so Leo generously offered to help her find her classes. When they arrived he would simply join in.

After ‘Free Choice’ Sapphire had ‘Monster Assault Techniques’, which pretty much consisted of a bunch of demigods trying to destroy a life-sized straw model of the monster of the week. Since the Hades cabin was paired with the Aphrodite cabin for this class, Sapphire, Leo and a handful (read: three) of Aphrodite’s kids battled the inanimate dragon while the rest of the group sat around redoing their makeup. Eventually, Leo set the straw sculpture on fire, which delayed classes for the next hour while Percy and the nymphs rushed to put the fire out. Percy gave Leo a half-hearted slap over the head while Sapphire laughed at the expressions on both of their faces. Once the giant bonfire was out, despite complaints from some of the Hermes kids who were roasting marshmallows, Sapphire and Leo headed to another fire hazard, the climbing wall. The satyrs supervising made sure that the lava didn’t drop directly on them but by the time they reached the top Sapphire’s clothes were peppered with burn marks. 

After scaling the climbing wall they tackled a pop quiz in Annabeth’s history class. The questions were in a mix of Ancient Greek and English and covered seemingly random topics. The Roman demigods who were taking the class cursed under their breath in Latin while they struggled to read the Greek letters. Annabeth marked the quizzes right away and while she was marking ADHD Greek demigods started running races around the Big House. When they stumbled back inside Annabeth returned the quizzes and everyone started yelling out their marks. Sapphire grinned at her 85% and Leo started tap-dancing for his 90%.

Finally, Leo and Sapphire headed to the canoe lake. They were going to race with Percy and the Demeter cabin but the naiads squirted water at them and rocked their canoes as revenge for setting the fire earlier. After the fourth time Leo splashed into the water he gave up on racing and began tipping the other canoes over. Eventually Percy, Sapphire, Leo, Katie and the rest of Demeter’s children were all in the water attempting to dunk each other under. Percy had the unfair advantage of being able to breathe underwater. He grabbed peoples’ ankles and dragged them under, after a few seconds they would come back up spluttering and laughing. Eventually the conch shell sounded and they dried off and headed for the dining pavilion. 

During dinner Sapphire blatantly ignored the Ares cabin. After she sacrificed a buttery roll and a crisp garden salad to her parents she munched on the remaining roll and a pile of vegetables while explaining to Percy why she was suddenly a vegetarian.

“I don’t want to anger any gods by eating their sacred animal,” she told him. “I’d like not to do anything that might cause me to be blasted to dust.” 

Percy chuckled under his breath. “From what Annabeth’s told me you’ve got everyone but Uncle Z on your side. I wouldn’t worry.”

Sapphire raised her eyebrow. “Still,” she insisted, “I’d rather not risk it.”

They carried on a conversation about what they could do that wouldn’t anger this or that god until dinner was over. Mr. D made an announcement about a new camper who had arrived that day, horribly mangling the poor kid’s name, and then it was time for the campfire. Sapphire stayed for one song then she got up and headed towards the cabins. She pretended not to notice that several sets of eyes followed her; Annabeth’s, Leo’s, Percy’s, Ryan’s and Rella’s eyes were not among this group. They were too busy having a silent conversation about who should go after her. Eventually Annabeth and Percy nominated Leo for obvious reasons and the twins agreed. Leo had been having trouble not running out of his seat the second Sapphire left, but since he had spent the whole afternoon with her he worried about her feeling that he was hovering too much. As he now had permission to leave, he quickly whispered where he was going to Nyssa and left the campfire.

He found Sapphire staring at another fire. She was standing behind Hestia’s fire watching the flames rise and fall. She looked up as he approached. 

“You didn’t have to follow me,” she said quietly. 

Leo moved to the other side of the fire. He hesitated then put his arm around her shoulders. “Yes, I did. We were worried about you. What’s wrong?”

Sapphire sighed. “Nothing’s wrong, it’s just that…everyone was _staring_ and it…reminded me of, other things.” She made it clear from her tone of voice that these ‘other things’ were nothing good. Leo gave her a one-armed hug.

“You want to talk about it?”

Sapphire sighed again and gazed at the flames. After a time she spoke. “When I was a kid—”

“As opposed to the old lady you are now?” Leo interrupted, making a weak and ill-timed attempt at a joke. The corners of Sapphire’s mouth twitched.

“Let me finish. When I was a kid I had two best friends. You know about Ed, my neighbour, well it was him and another boy who lived on our street, Jeremy.” She choked a little on his name, and then continued. “People used to call us the Three Musketeers, we did everything together. Amber did join us some of the time but she had other friends and I just had them. Then when we were nine…that summer Jeremy and his family went to Egypt to visit his mother’s family. They were gone for weeks and on the way back from the airport…they were in a car crash. A transport truck hit them head on and then it folded and crushed a whole bunch of cars into them. His parents died before they could get to the hospital. His big sister wasn’t hurt that much because of the seat she was in but Jeremy…”

Sapphire took a deep breath.

“He was awful. When he got to the hospital he was covered in blood and his bones were sticking out of all the wrong places. When Ed and I came to see him, came as fast as we could, he couldn’t move, could barely talk…he knew he was dying. Nine years old, him always the smart one…” Her eyes began welling up. Leo dug into his tool belt and pulled out a clean rag. He handed it to her and she dabbed at the tears. When she had finished crying he took back the rag, now extremely damp, and she continued telling her story.

“He made us promise we wouldn’t abandon each other after he was…gone.” She traced a finger over her left palm. “Ed and I, we swore in blood that we would always stick together. Then…Jeremy died. We were nine years old and we watched our best friend die.” She looked up at Leo.

“Everyone at school stared so much. They stare and then when we looked up they’d look away and pretend they had never been paying us any attention. Some of Amber’s friends talked to us and so did the new girl, Elizabeth, who’s our friend now but everyone else they just _stared_. Then the next year Ed’s dad, stepdad really but he was like his dad, he died. Cancer. And we were with him. We…lost it a bit after that. Ed refused to talk to anyone except me…I wouldn’t eat without him around. We both _had_ to know where our family members were at all times…It got to where our families took turns sleeping over at each other’s houses or out in our backyard and Ed and I camped out right next to each other at night because we didn’t want to, couldn’t be separated.” She again traced over the spot on her palm where the scar from Ed’s Swiss Army Knife was hidden. 

“It got better, but the point is for three, four whole years all of the other kids were staring at us. And having that same thing happen tonight…Well, I’m not the only one here to have lost someone but I’ll bet they haven’t been stared at, and only stared at, after the Wars were over.”

Sapphire and Leo looked at each for at each other for a moment. Leo sighed.

“When the Giant War was over we all talked, a lot. We lost friends, siblings…I watched my family die. Jack Mason…” he shivered, “I was standing beside him when a hellhound bit him in half. In. Half. An Apollo kid had to finish it off because I just couldn’t move. And my mother…”

He looked away from Sapphire and she could see the tears shining in his eyes, reflecting the firelight. She put her back to the fire and gave him a hug.

“Ave atque vale, Jack Mason,” she whispered. “Hail and farewell, Esperanza Valdez.”

“Ave atque vale, Jeremy,” Leo replied, “Hail and farewell…”

“Robert Nolan,” Sapphire supplied.

“Hail and farewell, Robert Nolan,” he said. “You are all missed.”

“May you have achieved Elysium.”

They stood together for a time until they heard voices coming towards the cabins, the rest of the campers coming back from the campfire, then they broke apart and walked hand in hand to the odd-numbered cabins.

“You’re OK?” Leo asked Sapphire as they stopped in front of Cabin Thirteen.

“Better now,” she admitted. “Thank you.”

He gave her another hug. “Sweet dreams,” he said.

“See you tomorrow,” she promised. “Should I tell Nico you say hi?”

“Are you calling him?”

Sapphire nodded. “I’d rather he hear about Olympus from me instead of the Aphrodite cabin.”

“Tell him I say hi then,” Leo said. 

She opened the door to her cabin. “Of course. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

She stood in the door for a moment as Leo walked to his cabin, which was at that moment as bright as hers was dark. Then she closed the door and started getting ready for bed.

* * *

_Nico’s POV_

Nico was getting ready to sleep when the rainbow popped up in front of him.

“Sapphire!” he exclaimed after he had blinked the spots from his eyesight. “What’s wrong?”

She frowned. “Are you going to say that every time I call you?”

“Probably,” he admitted. “Most IMs I get are for problems.”

Sapphire rolled her eyes. “I owe you four drachmas, I got claimed by Persephone, and I got called to Olympus. Which one of those is the problem?”

Nico blinked and Sapphire took that as an invitation to rattle off a summary of what had happened the one and a half days he’s been away.

“Wow,” he squeaked when she finished. “That is…a lot.”

Sapphire nodded. “So, what’s up with you?” she asked.

“Sapphire you just…how…You can’t just tell me all that then change the subject!”

Sapphire raised an eyebrow. “Tell me what you’re doing in New Orleans and I’ll tell you everything in more detail when you get back.”

“Fine.” He told her about the tests he was running and the areas he had been to. He was just starting on a few theories he had when Sapphire yawned.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “Go—” she interrupted herself with another yawn.

“Gods, Sapphire, its past midnight there isn’t it? You should sleep.”

“Probably,” she agreed, nodding. “Oh, Leo says hi.”

Nico hid the small smile that crossed his face. “Tell him I say hi too. Get some sleep.”

“I will,” she promised. “Bye.”

“Bye.” Nico slashed through the IM and the room where he was camping went dark.

“Olympus,” he muttered to himself as he drifted off. “My sisters never do anything by half.”


	12. Rainbows at 1AM

_Sapphire’s POV_

_Tick,tock,tick,tock,tick,tock._

Sapphire groaned, pulled her pillow off her head, and looked at the clock. Thanks to her super Underworld eyesight she was able to see that the time as shown by the clock above the door was exactly one o’clock am. She groaned again and rolled over. She knew that if after an hour she wasn’t able to sleep it was really just better to stop trying. Falling asleep and having horrible nightmares was just not worth the one point five hours of actual rest she would end up getting.

“May as well do something useful,” she decided out loud. “I just hope gods don’t sleep.” 

She swung herself out of her bunk and headed towards the fireplace. She reached into the orange and black ceramic jar on the mantelpiece and pulled out a drachma. 

“This makes five,” she told the picture of Cerberus on the jar. Then she went back to her bunk and, using a flashlight, her necklace, twist ties and the bunk bed’s ladder, projected a rainbow across the foot of the bed. Then she sat crossed legged in front of the rainbow. She stared at it for a few moments then flipped the drachma over in her hand.

“Let’s get this over with. Again, here’s hoping gods don’t sleep.” She took a deep breath. “Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please accept my offering.” She tossed the drachma into the rainbow and it was absorbed by the light. Good, Iris was listening, or Fleecy was anyways.

Please, show me Apollo, god of the sun.” She paused. “Unless he’s with a girl, then I’d rather you don’t connect the call. Please and thank you.”

The rainbow shimmered and for the first time Sapphire was able to see flying snakes.

“Hello?” she asked, unsure if she had reached the right god.

_“Irisss messssage,”_ one of the flying snakes hissed.

_“Pleassse sstop throwing usss lord,”_ the more masculine snake added. The caduceus spun out if sight and the god it belonged to stepped into view.

“Ah,” Hermes said. “Hello. Sapling, wasn’t it?”

“Sapphire, Lord Hermes,” she corrected. “Is everything…alright?”

The messenger god ran a hand through his hair. “Perfectly fine, child,” he replied, making it perfectly clear that everything was not perfectly fine. “As wonderful as I am, I assume you want to speak with Apollo?”

“Who am I to argue with the god of thieves?”

Hermes nodded. Then he shouted, “Apollo! Call for you big brother! And please leave George and Martha alone!”

Sapphire and Hermes waited. Sapphire wondered what would make Apollo so mad that Hermes wouldn’t reproach him for treating his symbol like a common stick. Eventually, she heard what was probably Apollo entering the room. Then a blast of light appeared and Sapphire face planted into her pillow so her retinas wouldn’t burn up.

“Turn the fireworks off Apollo,” Hermes said. “I doubt Hades would be happy if you burnt his daughter to ashes.” 

The god of the sun mumbled noncommittally. “ _It’sssss sssafe to look now, dear.”_ Martha hissed from somewhere behind the two gods. Sapphire turned around and saw a second thing she’d never seen before.

The god of the sun crying.

Sapphire was dumbfounded for a moment.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, once her powers of speech started working again.

“Zeus won’t let me look anymore,” Apollo murmured. “He says I’m doing too much damage.”

“Look for…? Oh.” A rock dropped to the bottom of Sapphire’s stomach. The people who murdered his daughter. “That’s…not nice.”

Apollo dropped his head into his hands into his hands and Hermes and Sapphire took the split second the sun god wasn’t looking to have a silent conversation. Blue and purple met. Sapphire was surprised by how familiar, and easy to read, the eyes of the messenger god were.

_How long has he been like this?_

_Since the meeting ended._

_Oh. That’s…a problem. Will he be ok?_

_He’s out of the anger phase now…I’d give him a few more days._

_Anything I can do to help?_

_Get him talking. It helps if he vents his frustration._

_Is that just true for him or for all gods?_

_Are you planning on dealing with any other gods who’ve had their children murdered?_

_Grandmother Demeter._

_Oh._

Apollo looked up and Sapphire and Hermes stopped ‘talking’.

“You going to be all right?” Hermes asked his brother.

“Eventually,” Apollo replied. He paused. “Uh…sorry about whipping George and Martha across the room.”

Hermes cracked a small smile. “I’ll try to stop them from blasting you in laser mode,” he promised. 

The corners of Apollo’s mouth twitched upwards. “I’d like to see them try.” He wiped the tears off his face.

“So, how are you?” he asked Sapphire politely.

“Fine,” she replied. “Couldn’t sleep so I decided to IM you.”

“That can’t be the only reason.” Apollo winked and you could swear he hadn’t been crying his eyes out moments before.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Sapphire asked innocently. “Oh, I also wanted to ask if you felt up to blasting someone to dust for me.”

She was being completely sarcastic, by the way. 

“Who’s the unlucky guy?” Hermes asked, catching on quickly.

“I could blast someone,” Apollo said, not catching on as quickly.

“She’s joking, Apollo,” Hermes informed him.

Apollo blushed. “I could blast someone,” he insisted. “I’d really like to. It’s a lot better than crying.”

Sapphire silently agreed with him.

“Since we’re not really doing anything useful why don’t we watch a movie or something?” she suggested.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping so you don’t get torn to shreds tomorrow?” Apollo asked.

Sapphire grimaced. “I’d take getting torn to bits over nightmares, thank you very much.”

The two gods looked confused.

“But you can’t have nightmares, not tonight anyway,” Hermes said.

It was Sapphire’s turn to look confused. “Do explain.”

“Chiron and the council made a deal with Morpheus. You kids don’t get nightmares when you’re within the borders of either Camp, but it’s only good for six nights a week,” Hermes informed her. “You usually get a warning for nightmares though.” 

Sapphire hissed in frustration. “That would have been nice to know two hours ago.” Then, on cue, she yawned.

“Get some sleep,” Apollo insisted. “That’s an order.”

“Fine,” Sapphire muttered. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Apollo replied. Then he elbowed Hermes, who was also yawning. The messenger god jumped. “Goodnight.”

Sapphire slashed her hand threw the rainbow. Then she turned off her flashlight and immediately dropped to sleep.


	13. Gold Fireworks

_Sapphire POV_

So, as it turned out, Sapphire was not as affected by her late turn in as everyone thought she would be. Sure, during sword fighting she almost cut Percy’s arm off because she took a two second cat nap and Ryan had to grab the back of her shirt so she didn’t do a face plant into the fire during weapons making, but other than those two incidents she had been just as alert as ever. Having the experience of sloughing through school after a night of torturous nightmares probably helped. Or maybe it was the dunking Clarisse gave her in the lake after wrestling. Whatever it was, by the time she started getting ready for the fireworks she felt as jittery as the time she, Ed, Elizabeth, and Amber stole the high school mascot (a suit of tin armour, yay Trojans!) and mounted bits of it around the school for an Easter egg hunt.

After showering she got changed into black jeans and a purple V-neck. After yanking a comb through her hair and tugging on her shirt sleeves to make sure they covered her arms completely she stood beside her bunk and frowned at her gloves.

“I have to wear them.” She told her cabin. “I’d rather not risk killing someone. That would be bad.” With that pep talk over with Sapphire picked up her gloves. Before she could put them on her hand began glowing. She cursed, and then dropped her gloves as they suddenly began sprouting. Gold sparkles dripped from her hands as she watched three pansies burst from the seams of her gloves. Her thought process finally caught up to what her eyes were seeing. She groaned. “Thanks Mother. Thanks. So. Much.” The flowers stopped visibly growing after their roots tangled themselves around her gardening gloves. Life growing in the middle of the cabin of the dead, the irony in that bordered on sickening. Still, Sapphire was thankful that, if nothing else, the mad botanist decided to manifest herself in the privacy of Sapphire’s cabin, gods know what would have happened if the grass suddenly shot up ten feet during sword fighting.

Realizing that she was still dripping gold sparkles, Sapphire turned her attention to turning off her magical plant growing. While she was attempting this (and failing) someone knocked on the door, breaking her concentration. “Who is it?” she called, still not giving up.

“Just me,” Leo replied. 

Sapphire gave a small smile. “Well ‘Just-me’, as long as Nobody the First isn’t with you, come right in. The door’s unlocked. I think.” The door squeaked open.

“You need to oil those hinges,” Leo told her as he entered.

“But it’s such an effective alarm,” Sapphire countered.

Leo grinned, then his mouth dropped open as he stared at her magical sparkles and the living bouquet on the stone floor. “What…?”

“Mother’s ‘gift’.” Sapphire informed him. 

“Oh.” He blinked. “Can’t you turn them off?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do. Nothing’s working. Maybe I’ll just blend in with the fireworks.” 

Leo chucked. “That’s a good one. How are you feeling?”

Sapphire blinked at the irrelevancy of the question. “Stressed,” she admitted.

“Try to de-stress,” he suggested.

“That….actually makes a lot of sense.” She closed her eyes and took a few slow breaths. Then, with almost no force behind it, she drew the power spilling out of her hands back, into her chest where she imaged the gold light milling around in her right atrium. Weird, yes, but it worked. When she opened her eyes the sparkles were gone and Leo was blinking. Eventually he held his hand up and set it on fire.

“It’s really dark in here,” he decided.

“I hadn’t noticed.” Sapphire shrugged. “Now that that crisis is dealt with…wait.” She knelt down and picked up her gloves, which still had fibrous roots weaving through them. “Think you could give me a hand with this?”

Leo eyed the flowers warily. “Sure.”

* * *

_Leo’s POV_

Leo was only slightly confused when Sapphire asked if his tool belt could produce a bag of dirt and a medium-sized toolbox. He had learned the hard way that when children of Hades have a plan they didn’t usually disclose the entire thing. Two minutes later (yes, he counted) Sapphire had detangled the roots of the flowers, filled the perfectly good toolbox up with dirt and planted the flowers in a row in the centre of the toolbox.

“There,” she decided, dusting her hands off. “Assuming they don’t die in the next ten hours from lack of sunlight I’ll hand them over to Katie tomorrow.”

“Interesting solution,” he admitted, studying Sapphire’s makeshift planter.

“But now we’re late,” she countered. “And I don’t have any gloves.”

Actually, they weren’t late. As the youngest in the Hephaestus cabin, Harley was lighting the first round of fireworks. Unfortunately, Chiron wasn’t allowing him around matches or lighters for the rest of the year because of the watermelon incident in April. That meant that Leo had to light the ‘not-match’ that Harley would then use to light the fireworks. Harley had insisted that Leo light the not-match so the fireworks wouldn’t be starting until after Leo got there. As for gloves, Leo reached into his tool belt and silently made his request. He pulled out a pair of gloves that Sapphire should be able to wear. He looked down at them and his eyes started welling up. The gloves, black with yellow trimmings, were exactly the same as the gloves that his mother used to wear when she was working in her machine shop. 

“Hey.” Sapphire elbowed him gently. “You okay?”

He shook himself and nodded. “I’m good.” He handed her the gloves and she put them on gratefully. “I’ll give them back,” she promised.

He smiled. “Hang onto them until you get others.”

“Thanks.” She took his fire-free hand and tugged him out the door. “Let’s go.”

* * *

_Sapphire’s POV_

After they reached the beach Leo caught up with Harley, who was pacing back and forth next to the boat him, Nyssa and Will Solace, Nyssa date, would be talking out to the fireworks platform. They exchanged a few words and Leo lit the, what could it be called, the ‘slow match’? Whatever Harley was using to light the fireworks. The trio headed out to the platform and Leo and Sapphire lay down a blanket on the beach behind Grover and Juniper. The fireworks soon filled the sky with light.

Percy was once again right, there was _nothing_ like Camp Half Blood fireworks.

Because it was the Fourth of July the brightly coloured explosions formed shapes depicting the many people and events that made America what it was. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Edison and plenty of other people who Sapphire didn’t recognize. The fireworks also showed Harriet Tubman escorting escaped slaves over the Canadian border and battles from the American Civil War and American War of Independence. The entire display ended with a waving American flag that shot off sparks from all four sides. 

“Your cabin did a really good job,” she told Leo after the display had ended.

He smiled. “This is nothing. Wait till you see what we’ve got planned for the end of year fireworks.”

He stood, and then held out a hand to help her up. She stared at it for a moment then accepted his help. “So, what were you saying about the time you almost set the forest on fire?”

Percy and Annabeth approached them just in time to hear Sapphire’s last question. Percy immediately burst out laughing. “Which time are you taking about? I can think of at least ten just from last summer.” Annabeth rolled her eyes and elbowed her boyfriend. 

“We were talking about when I was working on the exploding chickens three weeks ago.” Leo said.

Sapphire joined Percy in laughing, though her laughs were closer to insane giggles than the guffawing coming from Percy.

“Exploding chickens?” She giggled. “Who would want an exploding chicken?”

“It gets better,” Percy assured her as his laughter died down. “They were exploding _wicker_ chickens.” Sapphire stopped laughing and stared at him, tongue-tied.

“Exploding. Wicker. Chickens,” she said slowly. “Exploding _wicker_ chickens.”

“Not my best idea,” Leo said defensively.

“ _Definitely_ not your best idea,” Annabeth inserted. “What earth made you think mixing Greek fire with an extremely flammable material was safe?” Leo began coughing out excuses.

“ _Exploding_ wicker _chickens,_ ” Sapphire said again. Then she burst, once again, into manic laughter.

“I think it’s time to go,” Annabeth said.

“Agreed,” Leo and Percy chimed.

The three of them steered Sapphire towards the cabins. By the time they neared Hestia’s fire she had calmed down a lot, mostly because she had to breathe and laughing like crazy didn’t leave much room for that.

“I’m okay now,” she told them once they’d reached Cabin Thirteen. “Promise.” 

Annabeth let go of her arm. “Good,” the daughter of Athena decided. “Less crazy laughter would really be appreciated in the future.”

Sapphire nodded. “I’ll work on it.”

Annabeth and Percy said goodnight and walked to their own cabins. Leo finally let go of Sapphire’s other arm. “So…” he said.

Sapphire gave a small smile. “Be glad it was me and not Ed. He would definitely have been laughing over that and I swear when he starts laughing it’s like he doesn’t have to breathe.”

Leo smiled back. “That must be fun to deal with.”

“Yeah.” Sapphire’s smiled faded. “When he does laugh that is.” They stood quietly for a moment, the sound of other campers returning to their cabins rushing around them.

“I’d better get back,” Leo said finally, jerking his head towards his cabin. “I promised Nyssa I’d be calling lights out.” Sapphire nodded. Then she tentatively gave him a hug. He hugged her back.

“Goodnight,” he said.

“Night,” she replied, smiling.

They both turned and started walking towards their cabins, then Sapphire turned back. “Leo.” He turned around. “Thanks.” He grinned and gave her a half wave, half salute. She waved back then entered Cabin Thirteen with a smile on her face. She spared the trio of flowers a quick look, they hadn’t died yet, they hadn’t even wilted. Then she got into her pajamas and collapsed into a dreamless sleep.


	14. Strange Appearances

_Sapphire’s POV_

Commotion from outside woke up quite a few late sleepers the next day. Sapphire was one of them. She blinked herself awake as exclamations worked their way through her unconscious mind. Once her thoughts started making sense she tugged on her boots, twisted Swift Death out of her ring, and stepped outside still wearing her pajamas. When she saw what everyone was looking at she blinked and put her sword away.

Overnight two new cabins had appeared.

Sapphire blinked again and began studying the new additions. They had been tacked on to the end of the goddess side of the Ω of cabins. The second one was fashioned after the old temples with grooved pillars and a triangle roof but instead of being made of white marble it seemed to be carved of a single piece of blue-grey coral. Between each pillar was a mirror backed fish tank filled with all sorts of undersea things, corals and seaweeds, colourful fish and octopi, even a few small sharks. Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Juniper and Leo were standing near that cabin. Sapphire made her way through the crowd but stopped just short of them so that she could get a better look at the first new cabin. From the door of Cabin Thirteen she hadn’t been able to see how the green, flat-roofed building was constructed. From about two meters away she could see the dark green vines snaking around sturdy trellises to make up the walls and roof. Here and there white and red roses, Tudor roses, appeared along with leaves and small thorns. Where a door should have been was a tangle of vines framed by two silver trees with emerald leaves and sapphire flowers. A silver bell dotted with diamond flowers hung on a branch of the tree on the right.

“For Persephone and Amphitrite.” Sapphire jumped slightly as Annabeth spoke right next to her. She hadn’t noticed that her cousin and his girlfriend had come to stand near her. She looked around and saw that Grover and Juniper were now inspecting the walls of the Persephone cabin with several other satyrs, Leo was talking with some of his siblings, and Ryan and Rella had emerged with a small group of Romans to gawk at the new buildings. 

“But how did they get here?” Sapphire asked. Then at once she answered her own question. “Magic. Lovely.” She stepped forward and took a closer look at the ‘door’ of the Persephone cabin. Against her better judgment she did something that no one else had seemed to try.

She rang the bell.

At once the vines became animated and in a spilt second they grabbed Sapphire and pulled her into the cabin. She tumbled forwards in a perfect summersault and landed rear-end first on the cabin’s grass floor. “Ow,” she muttered as she stood. She looked around and realized that the inside of the cabin was infinitely weirder than the outside. First of all, the vine ‘walls’ were studded with jewels and flowers of all shapes, sizes and colours. Second, in place of bunks there were hammocks hung up along one wall. Third, a girl had appeared in the center of the room in a puff of green smoke. 

“Good morning _Lady_ ,” she said with a smile. 

Sapphire blinked. “Beg pardon?” She asked in confusion.

The girl helped her up. “It’s _lovely_ to finally meet you. _I’m_ Rosalind.”

“You’re a dryad,” Sapphire stated. Then she corrected herself. “A nymph. Sorry.”

“I’m an _anthousai_ , a _flower_ nymph. _You’re_ a demigod. Your _mother_ is a goddess. Have we covered _everything_?”

Sapphire nodded. “Did my mother send you here?” she asked.

“Of course,” Rosalind replied. “Lady Persephone was a _very_ good friend of my grandmother. Our family _has_ kept in touch.”

Sapphire remembered the story of the sirens having once been her mother’s best friends before Demeter’s ‘blessing’ turned them into evil bird ladies. She figured that Persephone owed it to the decedents of the nymphs who were turned into sirens not to forget them. The sirens had just wanted to look for their friend after all.

Sapphire looked around the cabin again. “I assume the walls and ceiling are your work? I would have just stuck with the roses if it were me.” 

Rosalind scowled. “ _I_ would _also_ have liked only roses but your mother didn’t want to leave _any_ of your favourite flowers out. The jewels as well are a _bit_ much.”

Sapphire shrugged. “Sorry? I didn’t even know about this until two minutes ago.”

Rosalind’s scowl softened. “Of course Lady, it’s _not_ your fault.”

A bright ringing filled the cabin. “It’s the Daughter of Athena,” Rosalind told Sapphire. “Shall I let her _in_?”

“Annabeth?” Sapphire asked. Rosalind tilted her head and then nodded in affirmation. “You can let her in. Gently.” Rosalind snorted and then Annabeth came tumbling into the cabin. Sapphire rolled her eyes at the flower nymph.

“Are you all right?” Annabeth asked.

Sapphire nodded. “Annabeth, meet Rosalind. Rosalind, this is Annabeth.”

The two of them sized each other up. Finally, Annabeth offered her non-metallic hand to Rosalind, who shook it with a short accompanying nod.

“The architecture of this cabin is very inspired. I couldn’t have done better.” Annabeth told Rosaline. “The walls are a little overwhelming though.”

Sapphire and Rosalind sighed in unison.

“We were _just_ discussing _that_ ,” Rosalind said.

“Then it seems as if we’ve exhausted all topics of conversation,” Sapphire announced. “Also, I’m hungry.”

Annabeth muffled a giggle.

“Have you met any of the other nymphs yet?” Sapphire asked Rosalind while Annabeth regained her composure.

Rosaline shook her head. “ _I’ve_ been _too_ busy _settling in_.” 

Sapphire smiled at all the inflection Rosaline had managed to fit into a six-word sentence. “We’ll introduce you,” she promised. Her stomach growled. “Then, breakfast.” 

* * *

_Nico’s POV_

Nico was looking for his little sister.

Somehow he had managed not to get blindsided by images of Bianca and the Hunters only to end up in the middle of a forest without Sapphire anywhere in sight. 

“Seriously?” he muttered. He looked around a sighed. “At least it’s not Clovis’ fault this time. I think.” He decided to just start walking around to see if he was able to find Sapphire. He could sense that she was close by and that was the only reason he knew he wasn’t completely in the wrong place.

Deciding that he should probably mark his path so that he didn’t end up walking in circles, Nico took out a Swiss Army Knife (a good thing for a demigod to have handy) and made a nick in a tree to his left. “Ow!” it shouted.

Nico blinked in surprise. “Hello?” he asked cautiously.

The tree shivered and then shrank. In a few moments Nico was looking at his sister, who was wearing a green sundress and blinking in surprise.

“That _hurt_ ,” she said. “And this isn’t a nightmare.”

“You’re dreaming,” Nico assured her.

“That’s what you’d say if you were real,” Sapphire said. “It’s also what you’d say if you were a figment of my imagination. How are you here?”

Nico smirked. “I am the mighty Ghost King,” he replied. “And I wanted to check on you but I’m out of drachmas.”

Sapphire blinked again. Then she closed her eyes and they were suddenly standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

“So I am dreaming,” she assured herself. “I must be missing Nico more than I thought. And it’s only been three days.”

Nico sighed. “How do you want me to prove that I’m real?”

Sapphire thought for a moment. “Tell me when you’ll be back,” she decided.

“Friday, hopefully,” Nico told her. “In time for capture the flag.”

Sapphire raised an eyebrow. “I’m holding you to that.”

“I’ll do my best to meet your expectations,” he said dryly. “How have you been?”

“Good,” she sighed. “We have two new cabins, for Persephone and Amphitrite. They’re pretty.”

“That’s nice.” Nico’s ears began to ring. A rotting hand clawed its way over the edge of the cliff. The corpse it was attached to dragged itself towards them. It was a decomposing, hollow-faced woman wearing a mildewed dress and a dripping wet veil. The remains of a bride who had drowned herself after her fiancé left her at the altar.

Also the ghost that Nico had been chasing after but hadn’t been able to find before he practically collapsed with exhaustion.

Beside him, Sapphire turned paler than she was normally. She backed away from the crawling corpse, shaking with fear. Nearly hyperventilating she reached to her side and drew her sword, which had suddenly appeared.

“That’s my cue to wake up,” Nico said, keeping his gaze on the dead bride. “Don’t worry; it’ll disappear when I’m gone.” 

The end of the cliff crumbled, dropping the corpse back into the sea.

“Gods of Olympus it better disappear,” Sapphire said in a shaky voice. “Or I won’t end up sleeping for nights.” 

“Sorry,” Nico apologized. “I’ll get out of here now so it won’t have a chance to claw its way back up here.” 

“You do that,” his sister agreed. “See you on Friday.” 

Nico gave her a quick hug. “See you on Friday.”

He woke up to the wailing of the ghost of the drowned bride.


	15. Everything Terrible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this went from zero to a hundred very quickly.

_Sapphire POV_

Friday sucked, and that was an understatement. The whole day didn’t suck; it was just that the sucktastic stuff outweighed the fantastic stuff by a whole lot. 

That morning Sapphire and Leo were trying to put the weapons’ shed into some semblance of order. Originally, Nyssa and Lacy were scheduled to do that day’s organizing but Nyssa asked Leo to take over for her because most of the mess was stuff that he’d made and Lacy begged Sapphire to do her part of the job because she had a run with one of the dryads that she didn’t want to miss.

It was so obviously a set-up that Sapphire had to pinch herself to make sure.

So, Sapphire and Leo had lugged all the knives out of the shed and were trying to create some sort of organized chaos. This was hard because there were a lot of knives. Sharpe and easy to hide, they were the favourite spare weapon for demigods who went home for the school year and most of the ones they had in the shed were brand new, made for the influx of new campers. Most of them also had a few tricks, meaning that Sapphire had to be careful which part of the knife she touched or else the tip of it could end up embedded in the shed wall.

The two of them had somehow managed to get about half the knives organized when Jeremy Asher, who else, came walking around the corner of the shed with two of his ‘friends’. “I heard you had fun at the fireworks,” he sneered. 

Sapphire and Leo ignored him though both were on guard. Asher suddenly grabbed Sapphire around the neck and his wingmen grabbed Leo’s arms. Sapphire noticed that they were both wearing thick gloves from the forge, and then she remembered that she couldn’t breathe. 

“I don’t like it when people ignore me.” Asher squeezed and Sapphire saw black spots.

“Let her go, Asher,” Leo snapped loudly. Unfortunately, the shed was between them and the training grounds, which were packed and noisy, so all he got for his shout was a cuff about the head by Mean Guy #1.

Asher stopped crushing Sapphire’s windpipe and she breathed in before she could pass out. “You know, I don’t think I will.” Sapphire kicked at him as he lifted her off the ground. He tightened his grip and she wasted about ten seconds cursing him in her head. 

“I want to make up for the fun I missed,” Asher snarled. He held out his free hand and Mean Guy #2 handed him a knife. Asher twirled it lazily. “Don’t scream too loudly.”

Maybe they should have started by organizing the shields. 

Leo shouted again and was muffled by #1 or #2. Sapphire didn’t know which because she was preoccupied with the knife blade that was digging into her right temple. She didn’t scream as blood ran down the side of her face and Asher loosened his grip on her throat so that she’d have breath to cry out.

“Go jump in the Acheron,” she croaked instead. He sneered at her and dug the knife in deeper. Her eyes started welling up as he dragged the blade down the side of her face.

“Crying is good,” he decided. “I’d still prefer screaming.” The blade passed her eye and started heading too close to her neck for Sapphire’s taste. She kicked out suddenly and the knife skittered off course, cutting down to the corner of her mouth before Asher dropped it in pain. She’d kicked him right where it hurt the most. He swore at her loudly. Sapphire would have been offended if she hadn’t been occupied with crying in pain and slicing her right palm open with the knife she was gripping. As Asher was preparing to throttle her and his wingmen were being beaten up by Leo, Sapphire moved her sliced hand to hold the knife by its handle. She then jabbed it at Asher and stabbed him right through his hand.

“Ow!” he screamed.

They apparently had been making enough noise that they could be heard from the archery range because Will Solace came around the corner of the shed with his bow in hand. Clarisse was close behind him and they both stopped and stared at the scene before them. Clarisse quickly took control of the situation by punching her brother in the face. “Chiron!” she shouted as Asher crumbled to the ground.

Will helped Leo de-tangle himself from the unconscious Mean Guys. Sapphire furiously wiped tears from her face with her good hand. Chiron’s hoof beats could be heard when she noticed the purple sparks shooting from her cut hand. At once she turned and ran for the cabins. She didn’t even hear if anyone shouted behind her. 

Sapphire ran into the Hades cabin and shut the door behind her. Then she slid to the floor and let her tears flow freely. The salty tears made the wound on her face burn. She tried to will herself to stop crying and to stop her hand from sparking but it was useless, she had no control over either.

“Stand up girl!”

Sapphire’s head shot up from her knees and she saw a god glaring down at her. She quickly stood and looked up at Mars. She could tell it was Mars and not Ares because he was wearing Canadian Army camouflage rather than biker clothing. She also didn’t feel like stabbing Asher any more than she had been before.

“My lord.” She bowed stiffly. Blood dripped off her face and onto the floor. “What brings you here?” Her faced burned with every word she spoke but she tried not to show it. She was also not crying anymore. Amazing what the sudden appearance of the god of war could do to a person. 

Mars scowled. “My wayward son, he needs to be disciplined. I came to see what he did to you so that Minerva won’t make me feel guilty about turning him into a blubbering mess.” 

Sapphire rose up out of her bow and the god gently tilted her chin up and studied her face.

“You know that your grandfather served in World War Two,” he said when he released her chin. Even though it wasn’t a question, Sapphire nodded. Her father’s father had been part of the force that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. He was in his nineties now.

“Good man. A few of my sons fought alongside him. They’re dead now but they liked him.” Mars reached into his pocket and took out a metal object, which he handed to Sapphire. She took it and the edges of a soldier’s dog tag poked into her good palm. “That’s if you ever want my help, just thrown it on the ground and say my name. Only one use in it though.” 

Sapphire swallowed. “Thank you.” Blood dripped onto the floor again. Mars stepped forwards.

“I am going to give that boy a talking to,” he said. “Let me help you with that first.” He touched her face again and it exploded with pain. Her hand also burned fiercely and she bit her lip to stop from crying out. The pain seemed to go on forever and when it stopped Mars was gone.

“Poof,” Sapphire muttered. Apparently gods did not have a very good grasp on the concept of time. All of the ones she’d met face to face, aside from her immediate family, stuck around for a maximum of thirty seconds.

Sapphire flexed her hand experimentally and didn’t feel any pain. She removed her blood-soaked glove, mourning its destruction, and marvelled at the unmarred skin underneath. Immediately she ran her fingers over the side of her face and bit her lip when she felt the telltale ridge of a scar.

Her sister was going to pass out when she saw it.

The cabin darkened considerably and Nico strolled out of the shadows. He looked absolutely exhausted.

“Hi, Nico,” Sapphire said. Then she realized, too late, that it was probably not a good idea to draw her brother’s attention when she was covered in blood. She knew that head wounds bled a lot but it was a ridiculous amount of blood. There was even some that had run under the neck of her shirt and down her arm.

“Sapphire!” Nico exclaimed when he saw her. “Gods, what happened?” 

He practically dragged her to the bunks and made her sit down. “Are you hurt?”

Sapphire shook her head. “I’m fine, Nico. Mostly.” 

Nico went to their washroom and came back with a damp cloth. He carefully began wiping away the blood on her face. “What happened?” he repeated.

Sapphire sighed and explained everything to him. While she talked she turned the dog tag that Mars had given her over in her hand. It seemed to be designed to be broken into two wide rectangles with the top half saying "ΜΗΝ ΑΦΑΙΡΕΣΕΤΕ/ DO NOT REMOVE / NE PAS ENLEVER" on the back. The two front halves both read:

G13002

S.A. BANKS

HADES/PERSEPHONE O/RH/POS

CDN FORCES CDN

She figured that it was based on the design of the dog tags that Canadian soldiers carried, though she didn’t know for sure.

By the time she finished telling Nico what had happened he was clenching his jaw and had stopped clearing away her blood. “I am going to kill him,” he said slowly.

“I think Leo, Clarisse and Chiron will have beaten you to it,” Sapphire said. “And lord Mars may have scared him to death.”

Nico shook his head. “He’s still alive, and I am going to kill him, slowly.” He went back to mopping up her blood. He cleaned up her face and neck and then he began eyeing her arm where blood had soaked through her sleeve.

“You don’t have to—” Sapphire was cut off by Nico pushing her sleeve up. He stared at her arm until she pulled it away. “I’m fine,” she insisted. “I’m going to take a shower.”

She grabbed clean underwear and walked into the washroom, locking the door behind her. As she stood under the warm water she ran her fingers over the crosshatch of scars on her forearms. 

“This is bad,” she told herself. When she turned the water off she could hear Nico talking to two other people, Leo and Will Solace.

“This is very bad,” she corrected as she put on her still-bloodstained clothing. Of all people that could be there it had to be Leo and Will. Will would probably be overly concerned, being the junior doctor he was. Sapphire actually liked Will but this was way too personal to talk about around him. As for Leo, well she didn’t want to scare him away. He did get accused of killing his own mother though so he might not judge as much as Will would.

Sapphire steeled herself to open the door and walk into the room with the three boys.

Nico, her brother, what was he going to think? All children of Hades were a little bit broken but Sapphire felt like she was taking it out the other end of the scale.

“‘Don’t get too close, it’s dark inside. It’s where my demons hide, it’s where my demons hide,’” she sang softly. Then she opened the door. 

She really hoped that they didn’t.


	16. Breaking Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra warning for self-harm in this chapter.

_Nico’s POV_

Nico loved his sisters, he really did. That was why he hated it when either of them got hurt. When Sapphire emerged from the washroom she was trying to look calm but her shivering and blushing gave her away.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m fine,” she said for the umpteenth time. Leo walked to her and brushed her damp hair out of her face. Nico reminded himself that Sapphire had been spending practically all her time with Leo over the past few days so she would probably be able to stop herself from shooting death-fire sparks from her gloveless hands.

“I’m sorry,” Leo said. Sapphire’s mouth twitched into a smile. Nico didn’t know what she had to smile about but at least she was smiling. If it were him he’d be long gone, killing hellhounds in Greenland or fighting sphinxes in the Australian Outback maybe. Somewhere he wouldn’t have to see any people and people wouldn’t find him.

“You couldn’t have done anything,” Sapphire said quietly. “It was practically three-to-one, totally unfair.” 

As she spoke, Nico saw the scar down the side of her face pulling at the corner of her mouth. Looking at it made him want to march out of the cabin, find Jeremy Asher, and drop kick him to the Fields of Punishment. The scar traveled down from her right temple right to where her jawbone started. It then made a sharp turn and cut across her cheek to end at the corner of her mouth. It wasn’t as bad as some of the scars that other campers had but this scar hadn’t been earned during a fight.

“I’m going to kill him,” he muttered to Will.

Will sighed. “She stabbed him right through his sword hand and Clarissa broke his nose in two places, so he’s already lost his sword-skills and his ‘good looks’. Then Ares, Mars left him crying like a baby in front of the entire camp. Think you can do any better? ” Nico shrugged. He could try.

“Besides,” Will added, “Chiron wouldn’t be happy.” 

Will was right, Chiron was never happy about campers killing other campers. This one time though, Nico thought that loosing dessert privileges would be worth it.

Sapphire and Leo finished whispering nothings to each other and Will started insisting that he check Sapphire’s injuries.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Promise. Mars healed me.”

“He’s a war god,” Will said distastefully. 

“A _Roman_ war god, Mars is different form Ares. Just ask Percy.”

Will wasn’t convinced. “Humor me.”

“Humor him,” Nico agreed. “He won’t leave you alone otherwise.” 

Sapphire grumbled but eventually allowed Will to assay her scars. The ones on her face and hand, not the ones on her arms.

“She’s fine,” Will said eventually. “Her hand is completely healed.” He didn’t mention her face.

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Sapphire muttered.

“You were a bit of a broken record,” Leo told her. “It’s not a surprise that they stopped listening.” 

Sapphire rolled her eyes.

Will walked towards the door. “Percy ever so wisely decided to half drown most of the Ares cabin, so I have to make sure that none of them are harassing my siblings. I had better see all of you at dinner.”

Nico opened his mouth to protest but Will cut him off. “Doctor’s orders,” he said as he left.

“I hate it when he does that.” Nico muttered.

Sapphire dropped onto the couch. “And he knew I was planning to skip dinner how?” she asked.

“Apollo kid,” Nico and Leo replied in likely never to be repeated union.

“They know things,” Leo said in a spooky voice. Sapphire laughed.

Nico yawned. “I am taking a nap,” he announced. “Please go away.”

Sapphire threw a throw pillow at him. He didn’t even know why they had throw pillows, their name alone was too much of an invitation.

“Wait! Did it work?” Leo asked quickly.

Nico tossed the slightly smoking ghost detector to him. “What do you think?”

Leo groaned. “I was so sure…Do you want me to fix it?”

Nico face planted onto his bunk. “If you want to,” he muttered into his pillow.

“Huh?”

Nico turned his head so his voice wouldn’t be muffled. “Yes, you can fix it if you want to. Take the tunnels to Bunker Nine; our entrance is under the rug in front of the shrine.”

Nico vaguely heard Sapphire ask what tunnels he was talking about. Then he blinked and immediately fell asleep. 

LINE

He wasn’t sure how long it was after he fell asleep that he ended up in the white room. Time in dreams was fluid, but he was pretty sure that it was at least half an hour. He only knew this because Sapphire was standing beside him and it would have taken about that long for her to reach Bunker Nine and then fall asleep. Of course, she could have stayed in Cabin Thirteen but Nico judged that as much less likely.

“Once again, no one bothered to tell me that the tunnels under camp had been put to use,” she said to him. “Do you think it’s the two godly parents thing or is this what normally happens with new campers?”

“It would have been in the orientation film,” Nico told her.

Sapphire huffed. “OK, tomorrow I am going to the Big House and telling Chiron that I’m watching the orientation film. This is getting ridiculous.”

“What are you doing here?” Nico asked. As far as he knew, he was the only child of Hades to ever be able to travel through dreams.

Sapphire shrugged. “I just looked for you. It wasn’t that hard. I wanted to show you what happened. ”

“Today?”

Sapphire’s mouth twitched. “No. What happened to make me…” She didn’t finish the sentence, just rotated her arms so that the latticework of scars was visible. There were a lot of scars crisscrossing each other on both of her arms.

“You don’t have to…” Nico started.

“Yes, I do,” Sapphire cut him off. “Leo already knows, I mean he doesn’t know that he knows but— Never mind. You should just know.”

She closed her eyes and the room around them began shifting. Colours ran and shapes formed until they were standing in what was unmistakably a hospital room. There was a little boy lying on the bed with tubes and bandages crossing every which way. There was a smear of blood across his forehead and Nico could see that most of his bones were not in the right place. There were two other children his age sitting beside the bed, a young Sapphire and another boy with blue eyes and vaguely Asian features. A muffled conversation could be heard coming from outside the room.

“Jeremy, please don’t die,” Young Sapphire begged. There were tears running down her face. The other boy squeezed her hand.

“You’re not gonna die, right Jer? It was just a stupid truck. I’ve hit you harder with a hockey stick!” he joked. His eyes were pink from not crying, even though it was clear that he wanted to. The boy on the bed let out a short laugh that turned into a gasping cough.

“Is Sera alright?” he choked out after he stopped coughing.

“Just a few broken bones,” the other boy said. “She’ll be here to nag at us any second.”

Young Sapphire gulped back her tears. She opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by Jeremy. “She’s gonna be so mad at me when I die before she gets here.”

Young Sapphire gritted her teeth. “You are _not_ going to die!” she insisted.

Beside Nico, Sapphire was taking steadying breaths as they watched the scene. “You don’t have to show the rest,” Nico told her.

She nodded thankfully and then the room sped up around them. When it slowed down to normal speed the room had changed to a white and black room with a wall of windows. The only furniture in this room was a white armchair and a black couch with a low table in between them. Young Sapphire and the blue-eyed boy from the hospital room were sitting on the couch between Sapphire’s mother and another woman, who must have been the other boy’s mom. On the chair was a young, well-dressed man holding two files.

“…will be able to help you,” the boy’s mother was saying.

“But mom, we don’t want a shrink!” the boy said.

Young Sapphire nodded. “Ed and I are fine!” she said.

Ed nodded. His mother sighed. “Please dears, just try it for a little while? Everyone is worried about you and you refuse to talk to us.”

Ed and Young Sapphire exchanged looks. Just like Chiron and Annabeth did, they had an entire conversation without saying a word.

“Okay,” Young Sapphire said slowly. “If it will make you feel better…” She and Ed were both hugged by their mothers.

“I wish you would talk to us,” Sapphire’s mother said.

“It will help them to talk to anyone,” the young man assured them. “And I’m sure we will be the best of friends.”

Images swirled and stopped at one where the shrink was speaking to Young Sapphire and Ed together. Their mothers weren’t with them. There wasn’t any sound but Nico saw the man smile reassuringly at the two children. Ed nodded slowly while Young Sapphire looked out the window at the blue, blue sky.

The images spun faster. Nico would have gotten a headache if he wasn’t painfully aware that this was a dream.

A backyard. Young Sapphire and Ed are talking. Young Sapphire is crying but when Ed tries to comfort her she pushes him away.

The black and white room. The shrink and Young Sapphire are talking. She has a smile on her face that Nico knows isn’t real.

Sapphire’s home, a bedroom, hers. A knife. Blood running down a thin, pale arm.

The black and white room. The shrink. Young Sapphire’s fake smile.

Blood, less than in the wars but still so much blood. A shrill scream that breaks the silence of the dream. Ed’s blurry face hovering above them. 

Sapphire trembled beside Nico in the blackness. “Ed found me. I shouldn’t have let him see me like that. After Jeremy I should have thought just once... There was so much blood. The carpet had to be replaced.”

Nico hesitated, but then he gave his sister a hug. “It wasn’t your fault,” he told her. “You were just a kid.”

“It was my fault,” Sapphire said. “It was all my fault.”

The darkness around them became deeper. Nico could hardly see Sapphire. He didn’t know whether this was his dream or Sapphire’s or both. He tried to make the area brighter, strange that he’d actually want light, but it didn’t work.

“How long was that?” he asked, still concentrated on getting rid of the darkness.

“A little more than a year,” Sapphire replied emotionlessly. “I was ten. Started cutting a few months in because...because...It hurt and then it didn’t. No one would have known except, well, you saw.”

Sapphire blinked and the darkness became less complete. “I think I’m waking up,” she said with surprise.

Nico tried to grab her arm but his hand went right through it. “You’re waking up,” he agreed. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“But…”

“Doctor’s orders, remember?” he teased.

Sapphire gave a small smile, her eyes still a million miles away. “We do have to pick a team for capture the flag.” With that statement, Sapphire disappeared. Nico was violently ejected from what was definitely her dream and he landed flat on his back on a carpeted floor.

“Oh…hi Nico.” Clovis helped him up. “How was your trip?”

Nico grimaced at his friend. “It was great, Clovis,” he said. “Just great.” 


	17. Emotional Whiplash

_Sapphire’s POV_

It hadn’t technically been a nightmare, but Sapphire still woke up screaming. She managed to clap her jaw shut after the first shout but it still drew Leo’s attention, a marvel since he was working on whatever it was that Nico had given him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when he reached the fold-out cot that was tucked into a corner. Sapphire shook her head, and then she sat up and found herself telling him everything that she’d just shown Nico. She would have been scared half to death if she weren’t already pretty much at her limit. 

“Uh…” Leo said when she finished talking. He didn’t say anything else until Buford the table rammed into him from behind, knocking him onto the cot near Sapphire’s knees. “Hey! Buford!” He swatted at the table, which danced out of range. Sapphire giggled slightly manically. Then she slapped a hand over her mouth when she remembered her promise to Annabeth.

“Are you alright?” Leo asked.

Sapphire nodded. It wasn’t really a lie, she would be back to normal in three…two…one...She was fine.

“What time is it?” she asked. Buford helpfully displayed a holographic clock. It was 2pm. “Thanks.” Sapphire told the table.

“Drop and give me twenty!” Buford yelled in reply. Then the table trundled away, deeper into the cave that made up Bunker Nine.

“Are you sure that you’re alright?” Leo asked. “You look, um...”

“Ed would say I look like a snowman,” Sapphire said helpfully. “Just give it a minute. He assures me it goes away.”

Leo looked like he had accidentally swallowed motor oil and tabasco sauce. “That’s…good. You and Ed, you’re pretty close, huh?”

Sapphire bent her knees and moved so that she sat with her legs hanging over the side of the cot. “Of course. After everything… And we moved in around the same time. His family was there two weeks before us.” She frowned. “I really should write to him.”

“You aren’t dating, are you?”

Sapphire looked at Leo with her ‘are you an idiot?’ face. He was really asking that now? “Would I have gone to the fireworks with you if we were?” 

Leo muttered something in Ancient Greek that translated to “No, sorry for being an idiot.”

“It’s okay,” Sapphire said in English. “Besides, it could never happen. I am not his type.”

Leo smiled slightly. “I’d think that you’d be everyone’s type.”

Sapphire laughed. “At home Ed would be the only one who’d date me, if I had more testosterone then estrogen.”

Leo blinked. “Oh. He’s gay?” 

Sapphire nodded. “Everyone knows already, he wouldn’t mind you knowing now. And, yes, I’m quite sure about that.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment. Then Sapphire asked Leo what he was working on. That wasn’t really the best idea as Leo then switched from English to Inventor and started talking about and explaining a bazillion things that Sapphire did not understand. 

“Please stop!” she exclaimed after about five minutes. Leo looked at her with confusion. “You lost me at ‘electromagnetic fluctuation’. What exactly are you making?”

“It’s a ghost tracker,” Leo said slowly. “Your brother blew it up.”

“I thought that was your job,” Sapphire joked. 

“Only half the time,” Leo insisted.

Sapphire rolled her eyes. “Three words: exploding wicker chickens.” 

“I might still have some of those lying around.”

“Do you want to set the forest on fire, again?”

Leo and Sapphire stared seriously at each other. Then at once they both burst out laughing.

“Why are we laughing?” Sapphire giggled.

“I have no clue,” Leo answered, wiping away a tear.

After they had calmed down, Sapphire turned back to the ghost tracking wristwatch that was sitting on the workbench in front of them. She let her fingers hover over the device and, when Leo nodded ok, picked it up and turned it over in her hands. 

“Have you thought about using Stygian Iron?” she asked as she examined the bronze timepiece.

Leo shrugged. “I have some kicking around somewhere, but I can’t touch it without my skin blistering. Will told me to stop messing around with it because he was getting tired of patching me up. I have some ideas though.”

Sapphire put the watch down and tapped her ring. “Well, lucky for you that I can touch Stygian Iron. Shall we?”

Leo grinned. “Let’s get to work.”

* * *

Nico was visibly surprised when Sapphire handed him the ghost tracker during dinner. The surprise was probably due to the fact that the watch wasn’t blowing up in his face and not because Sapphire was covered in soot and wearing one of Leo’s button downs rather than her bloodstained long-sleeve shirt.

“I didn’t have time to shower,” Sapphire said as an excuse for the carbon makeover. “We got that to not blow up with ten minutes left till dinner call. Leo thinks that it has a ninety-nine point nine percent chance of working.”

“What did the two of you do?” Nico asked incredulously.

“Added a few slivers of Stygian Iron to the inner workings.” Sapphire shrugged. “Wasn’t too hard. I was joking about it blowing up, mostly. It was the tuning that took the most time.”

They got in line, got their food, and performed the proper sacrifices. Sapphire thanked Hades that the power he’d given her was getting easier to control. Her hands hadn’t sparked once the entire time she and Leo had been working on the tracker, even though she wasn’t wearing gloves half the time.

“We’re on the Red Team for Capture the Flag tonight,” Nico told her when they got back to their table. “I talked to Clarisse after Chiron was done talking to her.”

Sapphire’s fork paused.

“We’re allied with Ares?” she asked, hoping that he was talking about a different Clarisse. Nico nodded his mouth full of brisket. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Nico swallowed. “Would you rather be allied against them?”

Point taken.

Sapphire dug into her roasted carrots. “Who else is on our team?”

Nico thought for a moment. “It’s us, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Nike, Nyx, Iris, and Hypnos,” he said. “Maybe a few others. Athena, Aphrodite, and Poseidon are all Blue Team.”

“Ares and Athena hold the flags?” Sapphire guessed.

“Ares and Poseidon actually,” corrected Percy, who had probably been listening the whole time. “And we are going to kick your butts.”

Nico grinned wickedly at him and brandished his fork. “We’ll see about that.”

Once dinner was over everyone collected their armour, weapons, and magic items and gathered at the edge of the woods, everyone except Asher and the boys who’d been with him when he’d attacked Leo and Sapphire.

“This is so weird,” Sapphire muttered as she straightened her helmet. “I know we need it so we don’t get killed but still.”

Chiron stood in front of the group and called for attention.

“Tonight the teams are led by Ares and Poseidon,” he announced. “Red Team, the south woods is your territory. Blue Team, you have the north. As always the creek is the boundary. All weapons, inventions, and magic items are allowed. Intended killing and maiming is prohibited and any instances of breaking this rule will result in suspension of dessert privileges. I will serve as battlefield medic for any accidental injuries. Both teams now have half an hour to place their flags and plan their attacks. Remember, your flag must be visible from all sides and you may not have more than two guards any closer than three feet from the flag. Good luck to all!”

Everyone was into the woods like a shot had been fired. The Red Team gathered just east of the clearing where the Battle of the Labyrinth had been fought. 

“Flag on Zeus’ Fist,” Clarisse ordered one of her siblings. He nodded and rushed off. He was followed by a boy from the Hephaestus Cabin, who grabbed two goggle-like apparatus from a box that Leo extracted from his tool belt before plunging deeper into the woods.

“I’ll pass out the goggles,” Harley volunteered. He began handing a pair of goggles to everyone on their team except for Sapphire, Nico, and a pale, blond girl, whose night blue eyes were clearly visible through her helm.

“Daughter of Nyx?” Sapphire whispered, gesturing subtly towards the blond. Nico nodded. Clarisse walked up to them and Sapphire unconsciously stood at attention.

“The two of you are going after their flag,” Clarisse told them. “The Hermes Cabin is your back up but the flag is your only job. Don’t mess up.”

“Yes ma’am,” Sapphire muttered as Clarisse walked away. “Nico, what are we doing?”

“Right now? We wait for nightfall.”

“Night…?” Sapphire glanced at the daughter of Nyx. “Those are night vision goggles, aren’t they?”

Nico nodded. Sapphire twisted her ring and hefted her sword when it appeared. This was going to be fun.

Their half hour was soon up. As soon as the conch horn sounded the daughter of Nyx, who had climbed up a tree, snapped her fingers and night fell upon the woods. Nico wrapped shadows around himself and Sapphire, hiding them even from their own teammates.

“Now what?” Sapphire whispered. “We just hope we stumble on the flag?”

“Yup,” Nico said.

They carefully advanced to the river and got past the guards, Percy and an Apollo kid, without being seen. Sapphire didn’t even breathe a sigh of relief for fear that someone would hear them.

Noises of battle were all around them. Apparently total nightfall wasn’t something that the Athena Cabin had planned for, so there were a few fights breaking out between members of the Blue Team who couldn’t tell that they were fighting their own teammates due to the darkness. Sapphire thought that she heard one of the Aphrodite kids screeching in rhyming couplets, a sign that someone from the Apollo cabin had gotten into a fight that ended badly.

Nico pointed ahead of them to a gap between the trees. Sapphire inched forwards and saw a shimmer of blue. Annabeth and one of her siblings were standing on either side of the flag, squinting into the darkness.

Nico pointed at Sapphire, and then at the flag. Sapphire blinked at him. He wanted her to get the flag? She raised her eyebrows and Nico pointed again.

“I’ll be right behind you,” he mouthed. Sapphire rolled her eyes and started walking carefully towards the flag. The shadows cleared a path for her and she reached the hawthorn bush at the base of the flag without making a sound. She looked behind her and saw Nico with his sword drawn, ready to fight if he had to. Sapphire reached for the flag and drew her sword just as she tore it down.

Annabeth’s sibling shouted and swung his sword. He just missed hitting Sapphire’s arm. Nico darted forwards and grabbed Sapphire’s wrist as she stumbled back.

“Shadow travel,” he told her, just as the shadows dove over them. Sapphire held tight to Nico and the flag as the screaming shadows rushed past.

Sapphire’s stumble continued once they landed and she fell flat on her butt in the dirt beside Zeus’ Fist.

“Duck!” the Hephaestus guard shouted as the Ares guard swung his spear. Nico dropped to the ground just in time to miss getting impaled.

“I think we’ve won,” Sapphire croaked as the flag clutched in her fist turned slat grey and the image of Poseidon’s trident was replaced with Hades’ Helm of Darkness.

“You think?” Nico said sarcastically.

Sunlight suddenly returned to the woods. Sapphire blinked as her eyes adjusted. The daughter of Nyx emerged from the trees.

“You didn’t mess up,” she said scornfully in a lightly accented voice. “Wonderful.”

“She doesn’t like us, does she?” Sapphire asked Nico as the girl walked away.

“What was your first clue?” 

“What did you do to upset her? Does our father have a feud with her mother? Or are you and Percy competing to see how many powerful gods you can become enemies of?”

Nico buried his face in the dirt. “Will you ever stop asking questions?” he groaned.

The rest of their team arrived, cheering and laughing. Sapphire stood up and pulled Nico after her.

“Definitely not,” she replied cheerfully.

They were quickly swarmed by their congratulating teammates.


	18. The Girls in Question

_Sapphire’s POV_

_Sister…sister…_

Sapphire looked around for the owner of the voice. Mist, probably not the magical kind, swirled around her, making a pale cloak over everything. She took a few steps and her foot hit a rock, which rolled away and made a plopping noise as it fell into some sort of liquid.

_Sister…_

“Hello?” she called. Then she mentally yelled at herself for being so horror movie.

_Sister…_

The voice came from her left, so that was the way she turned. Three figures, all girls, slowly emerged from the mist. The one on the left was a blonde with empusa pale skin. Needle-pricks could be seen running up and down both her arms. In the centre was an African American girl wearing a shredded shirt over a gaping torso. Frost covered her insides, especially the cavities where her lungs should have been. The final girl’s brown curls were streaked with liquid; blood ran in rivulets from her eyes. In her hands she cradled the top of her head, refusing to lose that along with her brain.

Sapphire screamed.

_“Sister,”_ breathed the frost-covered girl. She shuffled forwards and Sapphire stepped back. Her heel hit thin air and she realized that she had backed herself into a corner, into a river rather. Sapphire was willing to bet that bad things would happen if she landed in the river. However, and this would probably be a point of embarrassment if she got out of this alive, she was even more scared of the zombie girls than whatever the river could do to her. She swallowed.

“I’m not your sister,” she said shakily. The other two dead girls advanced and Sapphire’s heart beat an even more frantic tattoo.

“ _Join us sister,”_ begged the cranium-carrying girl. The bloodless girl jerkily reached out a hand and brushed Sapphire’s bare arm.

Wait.

Sapphire always wore long sleeves, always. The only time she wore anything short sleeved was when she was…

“Dreaming. I’m dreaming,” she gasped in relief. She could get out of here. Sapphire closed her eyes to her nightmare and pictured Hestia’s fire at Camp. She shaped the fire and the cabins surrounding it in her mind, drawing as many details as she could.

When she opened her eyes she was still by the river with the zombie girls closer than ever. She screamed. The small part of her brain that wasn’t consumed with fear managed to figure out that, as it was that one night for demigods to have nightmares, she wouldn’t be able to get anywhere safe.

_“Sister…”_ rasped the bloodless girl, with sunlight dripping from her lips.

_“Sister…”_ crooned the liquid-drenched girl, her voice echoing in her hollow head.

_“Sister…”_ hissed the frost-covered girl, releasing a spray of snow as air rushed past her exposed ribs. All the girls reached towards Sapphire.

“No!” Sapphire shouted. Her sword appeared and she slashed at the girls, only for the hardened iron to pass right through them without leaving a mark. The girls shuffled closer. Sapphire completely lost her head and, heedless of the consequences, stepped backwards into the river.

The water burned, like fire and acid both. Sapphire didn’t even bother trying to swim. She went under in a matter of seconds, whispers of “ _Sister”_ ringing in her ears.

She woke with a gasp and her forehead became acquainted with Nico’s nose. Nico jerked his head back with a yelp and immediately hit it on the upper bunk.

“Ow,” he said eventually. Sapphire couldn’t apologize because she was busy hyperventilating. Nico put his hands on her shoulders and spoke calmly to her. “Sapphire, listen to me, it was just a dream. You’re safe now, I promise.”

Sapphire listened. Then she let out a gasp and started sobbing. Somehow Nico wasn’t fazed. He hugged her and she cried into his shirt. More surprising than this, Nico then began to sing. Quietly, but he was definitely singing. It sounded like a lullaby

* * *

The fact that it had been a nightmare night was obvious during breakfast, either that or dark bagged, bloodshot eyes had become an overnight trend. Percy actually fell asleep in his breakfast and probably would have stayed asleep if he didn’t choke on a Fruit Loop.

It was strange that there would be a councillor meeting right after cabin inspection, but considering what had happened the day before it sort of made sense. Sapphire was invited, which meant that she could no longer avoid getting grilled by Chiron about what had happened. The attack was in fact the first thing on the agenda. With Leo to her left and Nico to her right, Sapphire recalled everything she could remember, stopping at the point where Mars had healed her and left to chew out Asher. After she was done talking, Chiron stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“Jeremy will have to be punished, of course,” he said. “Sapphire, do you have any suggestions?”

Sapphire shook her head. She would be happy to just never have to see Asher again, but that was probably not going to happen.

“Let me at him,” Nico said darkly. “Then our father can have what’s left.”

Will put a hand on the arm of the angry son of Hades. “What did I tell you yesterday?” he asked. Nico muttered into the ping pong table. “What was that?”

Nico lifted his head. “I’m not allowed to kill him,” he grumbled. “I didn’t say I would.”

“It was implied,” Annabeth said.

“There’s a reason we’re not telling you where we have him locked up, Death Boy,” Percy added.

“He may be a piece of schist, but he’s still my brother. You’re not killing anyone from my cabin if I can help it.” Clarisse told Nico.

Nico threw up his arms. “Fine! No killing! You can stop tag teaming me now.”

“How about a restraining order?” Katie Gardner suggested. Then she reached blindly across the table and took her camp necklace from Travis. “If we have those, do you think I could get one too?”

“I think a restraining order is a good idea,” Lou Ellen agreed.

“But only because it was an unprovoked attack,” Butch added. “Otherwise no-one would be able to be around each other.”

“Which means that you can’t get one Kitty-Kate,” Travis said. Katie punched him in the arm.

“That was provoked,” Leo said, before Travis could complain or say something that would gain him lasting injuries.

“All in favour?” Percy asked, and then he raised his hand quickly.

“Are we voting?” Clovis asked drowsily. He had fallen asleep as soon as he sat down, and had just been woken with a kick in the shins by Leila Vagnsdóttir, the daughter of Nyx.

“We’re voting,” Leila confirmed. “Restraining order for Sapphire Banks against Jeremy Asher, yay or nay?”

Sapphire had a flashback to her visit to Olympus when all of the counsellors raised their hands in favour.

“Majority, motion passed.” Connor punctuated his proclamation with the muffled pounding of a gavel against the table.

“Where did you get that?” Annabeth asked.

“Uhhh…” Connor and Travis both bolted. Everyone patted their pockets, and everyone except Percy, Annabeth and Clarisse found that they were missing belongings. For Sapphire, that belonging was Swift Death, currently in ring form.

“Stolls!”

They all stood. They tried to case after the brothers, but didn’t make it past their chairs. Travis and Connor had somehow managed to tie all their shoelaces together under the table.

“STOLLS!”

Chiron sighed. “Meeting adjourned,” he muttered, as eighteen irate demigods proceeded to undo the giant knot of shoelaces so that they could chase down the Stoll brothers.

* * *

_One week later_

Sapphire hadn’t actually seen Asher since he’d carved into her face, and that was great. Going on a visit to New Rome with the returning Romans? That seemed like a recipe for a whole new bag of trouble. Actually, it was mostly the thought of visiting New Rome with the Greek members of the Seven that had Sapphire worried.

“Are you sure that it’s a good idea?” she asked Leo. “You did blow them up.”

“That was not me,” Leo defended. “It’s water under the bridge. Forgiven and forgotten.”

“True.” Sapphire shrugged. “And I guess you wouldn’t have your lovely two line barcode if you were still persona non grata.”

Sapphire was sitting on a clear spot of one of Bunker Nine’s workbenches while Leo worked on something that would hopefully not wipe out half the forest. Leo turned his arm so that his Roman brand was visible and Sapphire gently rubbed her thumb over the two burnt lines. Two years of ‘service’, two years of peace, two years since the war with Gaea. They were heavy things to be represented by only two lines.

“You know, I only got this so Terminus would stop hassling me about proper identification,” Leo joked. Sapphire looked straight into his eyes and saw the brief flash of pain. He had been thinking about the war too, only his memories were harsher than Sapphire’s imagination. She covered up the lines on his arm without looking down.

“He would do that, wouldn’t he?” she replied light-heartedly. “So, it’s safe to go to New Rome, but how are we going to get there and be back three days later?”

“Well, the Hecate and Trivia kids have been working on a portal-thing but it’s not functioning properly at all. The only vehicles big and fast enough to take twenty demigods and legacies across the country in half a day are the flying chariots plus a flying bronze friend of mine.” Festus, obviously, since Buford the table could barely support one person (long story).

Since one chariot, of which Camp now had two, could probably take five people plus the driver, which meant that ten people would have to travel by Dragon Express.

“OK, what am I missing? When you introduced me to Festus he was just a dragon again. How is he going to carry ten people?”

Leo grinned. “’Well, he’s not always a dragon. He’s still the Argo II, inside. Sometimes outside. ”

Sapphire puzzled over his statement. The she blinked. “Leo Valdez, you did not turn Festus and the Argo II into a Dragonzord!” Yes, ‘Power Rangers’ was the first thing to come to her mind. Leo shrugged humbly.

“I might have,” Leo said. “Two-in-one is always better, right?”

Sapphire grinned. “You mad genius!” She leaped off the workbench. “Should I even ask how you managed that?”

“Considering that you’ll have no clue what I’m talking about, probably not. However, since he’s been begging to show off, how would you like to see Festus the Dracozord in action?”

Sapphire smiled. “Definitely, and I’ll try to keep up with your explanations this time.”

Leo took her gloved hand and they headed out of Bunker Nine to Festus’ cave. There was a dragon that was going to be very happy to see them.


	19. Nico Doesn't Like His Own Plan

_Nico’s POV_

Nico fell behind the group as they walked towards the barracks of the Fifth Cohort. 

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” he whispered to Annabeth, who had also fallen to the back in the rear guard position.

“You’re the one who came up with it,” she reminded him. 

Nico gave a scowl that was only a one point three on the child of Hades grumpiness scale. “It was a side comment,” he muttered. “I didn’t think you’d actually take it seriously.”

Annabeth looked at him like he’d just said that he was moving to Hawaii to open a surfing school. “Nico, we take everything you say seriously.” That was usually the best idea, especially when Nico was in a maiming mood, but it made making jokes more than a little difficult.

“You do remember that a few of us have mortal parents who won’t be very happy when they see?” Nico said. 

Percy, who had been obviously listening to their conversation, spoke to Nico quickly over his shoulder. “Cross that bridge when we arrive.”

“What he said,” agreed Jason, who had been eavesdropping less obviously. 

Nico sighed grumpily and rolled his eyes. “Do you delight in overruling my opinion?”

“It’s the debating Roman in me,” Jason said modestly.

Nico punched him.

“Enough PDA!” Sapphire shot to him.

Nico blinked in confusion. “What?”

“Public displays of aggression,” Leo translated. “Also, we’re here.”

Piper knocked on the door of the barracks. Everyone except Jason let out a little cough as the smell of the compost heap hit them. 

“I’d forgotten how much that smells.” Percy grimaced at Jason. “How are you not un-acclimated?”

“That’s not a word, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth chided.

“You used it twenty minutes ago!” Percy said.

“I used ‘acclimated’, which is actually a real word,” Annabeth said. “‘Un-acclimated’ is not a word.”

“I just used it. If someone uses a word, then it should be a real word,” Percy argued.

Their debate was cut off by Hazel answering the door. When she saw them, she immediately smiled broadly. “Hi guys! I thought you were Nonus for a second...You do know that you don’t have to knock?” As she spoke she stepped to the side to let them enter.

“I think we’d all rather not risk not knocking,” Percy said. An iguana peaked around Hazel’s feet and blinked slowly. “ _Ave_ praetor.” The iguana turned into a blushing Frank.

“Hey Percy.” Frank rubbed the back of his neck. “You knocked really loudly.” And that was totally an excuse for turning himself into a lizard.

They all entered the barracks and Hazel shut the door behind them.

“We’re not staying long,” Nico told her. “You’re coming into the city with us.”

“We are?” Frank asked. Then he seemed to do a mental head count and realize that there was one extra person. “Yes, we are.”

“This is Sapphire,” Annabeth said. “Sapphire, these are Frank Zhang, Praetor of the Twelfth Legion, and Hazel Levesque, your half-sister.”

Hazel blinked in surprise. Nico had done his best to keep Sapphire’s parentage a secret from the Legion, and it appeared that he had succeeded. Only Reyna, Frank, and Jason had been told. Now that the visiting Romans were back he expected the news of Sapphire’s double-claiming to be all over Camp Jupiter by nightfall. 

“Hi.” Sapphire said.

“How…?” Hazel asked.

“It’s a long story.” Sapphire replied. “It took Demeter like, an hour to tell it.”

Everyone except Nico, Annabeth, and Percy looked surprised.

“You’ve met a god?” Jason asked.

“She’s met a few gods,” Percy corrected. “Dude, you miss a lot when you’re not at Camp Half-blood. What was it last time? The Capture the Flag game against the Hunters?”

“The one that we lost,” Leo agreed.

“Again.” Annabeth sighed.

“I’ve apologized for missing that dozens of times,” Jason groaned. “Would you give it a rest already?”

“To be fair, having three Big Three kids would probably have made the game more of a match and less of a steamroller,” Sapphire said. “Not that you got steamrolled or anything.”

Percy shook his head. “We got steamrolled. It was bad.”

Piper cleared her throat. “Shouldn’t we get going? There’ll be some places closing for lunch soon and we do not want to be on the streets when the rush starts.”

She hadn’t used charmspeak, but everyone who’d been in New Rome before agreed. The lunch rush in the city was something that you did not want to be in the middle of without full armor and multiple escape plans. A pet hellhound couldn’t hurt either.

“Where are we going?” Sapphire asked as Nico led them decidedly through the streets. Then she ducked as a discus flew past her head.

“Sorry!” shouted a kid somewhere in the crowd.

“Callie’s _,_ ” Nico replied. He sensed more than saw Sapphire blink in confusion.

“Beg pardon?”

“We’re going to Callie’s shop,” Hazel expanded. Then _she_ ducked to avoid Frank, who was in the form of a robin and had just been dive bombed by one of the legion’s giant eagles. In response to the attack he morphed in to a golden eagle and screeched murder to his attacker. 

“Which is who?” Sapphire pressed. “What?”

“Callie is the co-owner of _Magic Inc_. It’s a tattoo parlor and Romans don’t tend to endorse tattoos, so everyone just calls it ‘Callie’s shop’.” Annabeth explained with her usual conciseness.

“Who’s the other owner?” Percy asked. “Don’t tell me they’re both called Callie.”

Both owners were not, in fact, named Callie. The other owner, and Callie’s wife, a daughter of Arcus, the Roman form of Iris, was legally Kaoru Naenia Aureliana Felicitas Himura outside of camp borders. In New Rome, having more names than Reyna was practically grounds for public flogging, and the fact that two of her names were goddesses did not help matters. When she started calling herself Scarlett, a nod to her last name which meant “scarlet village", most people forgot that she’d ever been called anything else.

In short, ‘Scarlett’ was the answer to Percy’s question.

They managed to get to the shop without being crushed to pulp or setting people on fire. Frank did get in to a small scuffle with the giant eagles that was solved when Nico summoned the skeletons of many former legion eagles to even the odds.

Jason said that he’d never seen the giant eagles fly so fast.

At Callie’s, they were welcomed by both Callie and Scarlett. Callie was a redheaded legacy whose powers were overwhelmingly from Trivia. Scarlett was a Japanese woman with sleeves of tattoos on both her arms. Both women had the legion’s SPQR brand, both of them with the twenty lines that were the maximum years of active service.

Callie flipped the sign on the door to ‘Closed’ as soon as they entered. “Yes, it’s been tested. Yes, it’s safe. No, you will not turn into a pig,” she said quickly.

“What about a guinea pig?” Sapphire asked with a grin. Annabeth laughed and Percy blushed.

“You will not turn into a guinea pig,” Scarlett assured them. “Or any other type of animal.”

“Iguana,” Leo coughed, looking at Frank, who had turned back into himself. Frank did not dignify the dig with a reply.

Sapphire had sobered up and was raising her hand like she was in kindergarten. “Question,” she said when Callie asked her what she had to say. “What are we doing here?”

Nico lowered his voice and quickly explained. It had been his comment that gave Annabeth her idea after all.

“Oh,” Sapphire said when he’d finished. She looked at Callie and Scarlett, who were both darting around their shop, preparing things. “Are you sure that it’ll work?”

Scarlett paused her rushing around for a moment. “Callie and I tested it on ourselves, and it helped her save me from getting trampled by Hannibal when some _furcifer_ thought it would be a good idea to pull his tail.”

“Swear?” Sapphire asked.

“On Jupiter’s lightning bolt,” Scarlett said.

Jason shrugged. “That’s good enough for me.”

“You can go first then,” Piper told him.

Callie handed him a book of their flash tattoo designs, which included Roman sayings and symbols of the legion among other things. “Pick one.”

Twenty minutes later, Callie was plastering a sterile bandage over the black omega on the back of Jason’s neck. The process was repeated for Percy’s grey owl, Annabeth’s blue-green trident, and Piper’s curling snake. Frank’s bear head and Hazel’s tan horse took a bit longer. Leo accidentally set his neck on fire, which made Callie more than a little grumpy, but the bronze dragon head still managed to look lifelike. Sapphire chose various flowers that were arranged to form a skull and, though she didn’t see it, Scarlett also added a small dove above one of the skull’s eye sockets. Nico took a long time to decide, but eventually settled on black stylized angel wings.

Overall, they were at the shop for five hours. They all had to be in the building for the spell to work so demigod ADHD was really acting up by the time they were done.

“You have to stick together for four more hours,” Callie told them when she had finished putting the bandage on the back of Nico’s neck. “No more than ten feet apart until the time is up, understand?”

All nine of them nodded, though Percy, Jason, and Leo were fidgeting so much that it was definitely possible that they hadn’t heard. Piper repeated Callie’s instructions, clapping her hands in front of their faces so that she knew they were paying attention.

“Four more hours, got it,” Percy said. Jason and Leo agreed.

“Nico.” Nico jumped and Annabeth, knowing that she’d gotten his attention by speaking right in his ear, continued. “Nico, give Scarlett, and all the objects in this room, back their shadows.”

Nico blinked and looked down at the puddle of shadows at his feet. He hadn’t even realized that he had been borrowing shadows from all over the place, that was how distracted he was. “Sorry.” He quickly released the shadows while Frank settled the bill.

“You have got to teach me that,” Sapphire said to him as they left.

Of course he would, she was his sister, and umbrakinesis was definitely something that she was going to need to survive Annabeth’s plan.

Then again, if they didn’t have almost twenty fail-safes he would never have agreed to use her as bait. 


	20. In Case of Emergency, Be a Gecko

_Sapphire’s POV_

It was the day after they’d gotten their mind-linking tattoos and Sapphire, Hazel, and Nico were all running fevers. They nine of them had gotten two rooms at a hotel for the night (Festus was having too much fun running around scaring Romans for them to even consider having him turn into the Argo II) and the remaining four hours of required proximity had come and gone. At about three in the morning Sapphire had woken up because she felt like she was literally boiling. Hazel joined her two hours later and by the time everyone else was awake, Nico was seriously considering going to the _frigidarium_ in the baths and staying there until it was time to leave.

According to Hazel, Nico had never been to the baths before.

The three siblings weren’t the only ones having core temperature problems. Leo had wrapped himself in what seemed like a few dozen blankets and his teeth were still chattering. Everyone else, however, didn’t agree. When Leo took his own temperature and showed the results to Annabeth, she told him that it was completely normal.

“It feels like my guts are frozen,” he complained.

Percy clapped him on the back. “You’ll be fine, man.”

Leo glared at him. “If you come back and I’ve turned into an ice sculpture, Nico gets to say ‘I told you so’. Preferably in a way that includes a lot of you running for your life.” He and Percy both looked at Nico, who was using his sword as a substitute for an ice block under his feet.

“Assuming I don’t turn into a puddle before then, you’ve got a deal,” Nico said.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Try to get some sleep,” she suggested. “Sapphire and Hazel were both up half the night.”

“Nico and Leo were too,” Percy told her.

“We’re right here,” Sapphire muttered.

“We’ll try,” Hazel promised.

Annabeth, Percy, Jason, and Piper left after breakfast, with insistence from Sapphire and Hazel, to go watch a play that was being performed. A few hours after they left, Hazel and Nico were sleeping, albeit fitfully, Leo and Sapphire were trying to sleep, and Frank was standing in the ceiling with one eye pointed towards the door that led from what had been the girls’ room the night before to the hallway, the other eye pointed towards the window, and his nose pointed in the direction of the door the led to what had been the boys’ room.

Frank was the only one of them who was a gecko.

Sapphire was trying not to toss and turn so that she wouldn’t wake up her siblings. After what felt like a very long time, she gave up. Taking the thickest blanket from her bed, she went to the other side of the room and added the extra cover to the two blankets that Leo already had over top of him.

“Thanks,” Leo said quietly.

“I could see you shivering from across the room,” she replied. Then, before she had a chance to talk herself out of it, she lay down on top of the covers and put an arm around Leo. She felt him flinch with surprise and his eyes shot open.

“Sapphire!” he hissed in alarm.

“I’m practically a furnace right now,” she whispered back.

“That doesn’t mean that this is a good idea.”

“Are you my boyfriend or my brother?”

Leo didn’t reply right away. When he did it was quite obvious which option he’d chosen as he planted a kiss on her lips and didn’t pull away for a long time. “Boyfriend,” he said unnecessarily.

It was her first kiss, and it stunned her, but she somehow still managed to reply. “Then go to sleep.”

They both actually did manage to fall asleep, and two good things came their way upon waking up. Their body temperatures were back to normal, and Piper and Annabeth had woken them up first, which meant that Nico didn’t know that he had something to be mad at Leo about until they were twelve kilometres above Iowa. 

* * *

“You’re getting better,” Nico admitted after Sapphire failed to disarm him for the twenty-third time.

She laughed. “Are not, Angel Boy.”

“Are too,” he insisted. “You actually moved my sword that time.”

Sapphire rolled her eyes. “Katanas were not designed for disarming. Let’s try again.”

Nico backed up and they locked blades. Sapphire flicked her hand down and twisted her wrist, leaving Nico just barely holding on to his sword. “Finally!” She moved her sword quickly to block his attacking stroke.

“Good,” he said. “Free sparring?”

Sapphire smiled. “Bring it on.”

Despite her bravado, Sapphire hadn’t beaten Nico during sword fighting since the flash of excellence when she had gained her deathfire power. He did, after all, have four years of training on her four weeks. As usual, he soon had her backed up against Zeus’ Fist with nowhere to run.

“Cripes,” she sighed, surrendering.

“I don’t think I’ve heard anyone use that word since…ever,” Nico said seriously as he lowered his blade.

Sapphire shrugged. “I read too much.”

Nico suddenly gasped and fell forwards. Sapphire dropped her sword and caught him before she could be crushed by his dead weight. “Nico?!”

“Run,” he gasped, before his head lolled forwards and he was out like a light. Since running was not possible with him blocking her path, Sapphire gathered her strength and prepared to shadow travel both of them to the amphitheatre, which was the closest place that she could think of that was guaranteed to have campers. Before she could make the jump a dart whistled towards her and embedded itself in her shoulder. Her knees instantly buckled and she shoved Nico sideways so that his limbs wouldn’t fold unnaturally as she fell.

There was now no way she could shadow travel, her head spun and she was sure that whatever was in the dart would have her knocked out in seconds. If she did try to travel she’d probably loose Nico over Hawaii and end up in South Africa, which was where she usually landed when she messed up.

That left plan B.

Her vision blurred. She whistled twice as loud as she could, the two whistles that Percy had taught her. As the second whistle stopped echoing another dart hit her other shoulder.

_Seriously?_ She landed face first in the dirt, her braided hair somehow wrapping itself around her neck. She heard footfalls and felt herself being hoisted over someone’s shoulder.

Then her vision went black and she felt no more.


	21. Follow the Leader

_Nico’s POV_

Nico woke up spluttering, the water that had been dumped on him running down his nose. Percy and Will were standing over him, looking worried.

“What happened?” Nico asked.

Will held up a metal dart that was stained with blood on the tip. “Sleeping spell,” he told him. “Like the type _everyone_ gets from the Hecate cabin.”

“Blackjack and Mrs. O’Leary brought you here,” Percy said. “Blackjack told me that they found you passed out by Zeus’ Fist.” 

“Where’s Sapphire?” Nico asked.

Percy and Will looked at each other and Nico sat bolt upright. “Where is my sister?” he asked. 

“She’s still somewhere in the woods,” Percy assured him. “Somewhere past the Ant Hill, I can hear them.”

Nico immediately jumped out of bed, causing Percy to step back and crash into a cupboard. “I’m going after her,” he announced.

“Hold on!” Percy tried to get him to sit down. “Annabeth and Piper are trying to see where she is right now. That way we can all go, without wasting time wandering around the woods.”

Nico opened his mouth to say that he’d be able to sense Sapphire wherever she was, but then he realized that, probably thanks to the sleeping spell, he currently wasn’t even able to sense Percy and Will, who were right in front of him.

“What about Jason and Leo? Have they—Agh!” Nico cut himself off with a pained shout. The back of his neck felt like there was a white-hot brand being driven into it. He gritted his teeth. Suddenly, he couldn’t see the room in the infirmary anymore. What he did see was a boy standing in front of a swath of dead trees. His broken nose and bandaged hand made his identity obvious. He advanced and drew back his good hand to deliver a slap to Nico, which he didn’t feel.

Nico’s vision went black and when he blinked he found himself staring at the infirmary floor. Thanks to the vision, he hadn’t even noticed when his legs gave way.

“Nico! Are you alright?” Percy and Will helped him stand, both of them with looks of concern on their faces.

“I know where she is,” Nico announced. “In the Dead Woods.”

Will and Percy both grimaced, though Will’s expression was more pained than the son of Poseidon’s. The Dead Woods was an area of the woods near the camp boarders that had somehow become the home of Python sometime between the Battle of the Labyrinth and the end of the war with Gaea, or, at least that was Chiron’s theory. No-one had actually encountered the giant evil snake until the summer after the Giant War when, for a still unknown reason, it started eating dryads. That resulted in all of the dryads in its part of the woods fleeing their trees and planting new seedlings elsewhere. Will had led an army of his siblings from both the Greek and Roman sides to kill Python. They had succeeded but the dryads still refused to return, leaving that part of the forest dead. The lack of nature spirits, plus the fact that five children of Apollo had died fighting the snake, meant that the Dead Woods was considered an almost more unlucky place than Zeus’ Fist.

In retrospect, they should have figured that a certain kidnapping disgraced son of Ares would make his base there.

“The Dead Woods is, like, a mile wide. We’d have to be crazy lucky to find her before dark,” Percy said. Nico then told him _who_ he’d seen in his vision and the son of Poseidon blanched.

“I’m going now,” Nico said. “Whether you guys come with or not.”

“I’ll come with you,” Will said at once. “I studied that area for ages, maybe it’ll help.”

Percy sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, causing it to stand on end. “I’ll get the others. Meet you at the tree line in five.”

“You’d better,” Nico told him. “Or the only thing you’ll be able to do is pray.” 

* * *

They’d just started combing the Dead Woods when they saw the deer. It stepped directly into their path with its golden antlers shining in the sunlight. Everyone raised their weapons as soon as they saw movement, and Percy and Nico tightened their grips on their swords when they saw the innocent-looking animal.

“The Ceryneian Hind!” Annabeth whispered in awe. Nico relaxed slightly.

“Is it going to attack us?” Percy asked worriedly. Nico successfully resisted the urge to laugh at him, though he did make a good point. Most creatures in their world would attack demigods, no questions asked. 

“No you Seaweed Brain!” Annabeth hissed. “It’s Artemis’ sacred animal.”

“That’s not a good reason,” Percy pointed out. “Ares’ sacred animal loved attacking us.”

The deer looked straight at each of them and then started walking deliberately into the trees.

“It wants us to follow it,” Leo deduced. Without waiting for any of the others, he walked through the deserted forest after the deer. Nico followed him. He heard Annabeth mutter something about going ahead without a plan but could tell from the footfalls that she, Percy, Will, Jason, and Piper were all coming with them.

The deer led them through the dead trees, occasionally pausing to wait for them when they got stuck behind particularly tricky terrain. Will usually called out warnings so that they could avoid the worst places, like a wooded hill that turned into a ninety degree drop. 

It wasn’t the hardest hike the demigods had even done, but it wasn’t the easiest either. Nico wished that Percy had gotten Mrs. O’Leary to come but, like most sane creatures, the hellhound avoided the Dead Woods.

After about an hour of hiking, Jason decided to fly above the trees to see if he could spot where the deer was leading them. The other six kept going while he flew through the air. He suddenly let out a wordless shout and dove down into the trees about fifty feet ahead of them. They looked at each other.

“The ground is pretty flat up ahead,” Will said. Without another word they hurried to help the son of Jupiter. When they saw him he was standing beside a brown wolf with his sword pointed at the throat of the boy the wolf was standing on top of. A silver wolf was laying a few feet in front of a tree behind them, looking around alertly. The deer nodded to them, and then bounded away into the woods.

The boy on the ground with Jason’s sword and a wolf’s teeth at his throat was none other than Jeremy Asher. Curled up into a ball behind the sliver wolf with cut ropes scattered around her was Sapphire. Nico caught a glimpse of his sister’s face and did not at all like what he saw. The only other time he’d seen that particular expression on her face was during the dream that she had created on the face of her younger self.

Definitely not a good thing.

“Nice of you to show up!” Jason joked over his shoulder.

“Not all of us can fly,” Piper reminded him. Nico and Leo both started walking over to Sapphire but Annabeth stopped them.

“Piper and I will take care of her,” she told them.

“Why?” Leo asked. Nico gave Annabeth a weak glare.

Annabeth pointed to the wolf that was guarding Sapphire. “Tell me that doesn’t look familiar.” Leo looked carefully at the wolf. Nico didn’t have to.

“The Hunter’s wolves,” he muttered. Annabeth nodded. Leo sighed.

“Go lock up that _malin_ ,” Piper told them. Nico didn’t speak French, so he assumed she was describing Asher in a really unflattering way. At least, he hoped she was.

“ _Auxiliator tuus frater agam gratias,_ ” Jason said to the brown wolf after the four guys had surrounded Asher. The wolf stepped back, allowing Leo to sit Asher up and cuff his hands behind his back.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Leo said harshly. “Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

“In other words, keep your mouth shut,” Nico snapped. “Or else.”

Asher laughed. He actually laughed, making all of the boys glare at him. Just for interest’s sake, the scariest glares were Nico’s death glare and Jason’s wolf glare, which was only scarier than Percy’s because he still had his sword pointed at Asher’s throat.

“What are you gonna do?” Asher taunted. “Hit me? Have your parents smite me?”

“That could be arranged,” Will muttered.

Asher laughed again, more harshly this time. “The gods are weak,” he spat. “They didn’t even have the power to find me!”

Now, where had they heard that before? Nico was sure that if they had another evil Luke on their hands, Annabeth would jump way ahead of himself in the ‘taking a sword to the traitor’ line. He flicked his fingers and a shadow gag twisted itself around Asher’s mouth, hopefully causing him to choke. “I warned you.”

Annabeth walked up to them with Piper and Sapphire far behind her. Piper was whispering to Sapphire, probably using charmspeak that they didn’t want affecting the rest of the group. Sometime between Leo handcuffing Asher, and Nico putting a gag on him, the two wolves had fallen back, though they still seemed to be keeping an eye on things.

“We’re ready to go,” Annabeth said. “You?”

Leo hoisted Asher to his feet and Percy added Riptide to the weapons pointed at the son of Ares. Also on that list was Nico’s sword, an arrow from Will, and a flat-bladed screwdriver from Leo. “Ready.” Percy replied. They started walking, but then Nico stopped them.

“I’ll shadow travel us,” he announced. “It’ll be quicker.” While he spoke he looked at Will, challenging him to disagree. Will nodded to say that he was clear to do his ‘Underworld-y stuff’.

Percy and Annabeth exchanged looks. “Okay,” Annabeth said at last.

“Where to?” Leo asked. Nico concentrated and starting wrapping the shadows around them. Luckily, he was now able to transport other people without having to have physical contact with them. Jason and Leo grabbed hold of Asher to make sure he didn’t get away after they landed. 

“Big House,” Nico replied. “Brace yourselves.” 

He saw Piper start supporting Sapphire just before they started rushing though the shadows. One skin-peeling ride later they arrived on the Big House porch.

“What’s this?” Mr. D asked in a bored voice. “You’re interrupting our game.” Of course they were. Asher gurgled something. Sapphire almost collapsed onto the porch but was caught just in time by Piper. 

“Oh my,” Chiron said when he caught sight of the states of Asher and Sapphire. Then he spoke to Annabeth. “I assume this wasn’t part of the plan.” Annabeth shrugged helplessly.

“Leo, Jason, please lock up Mr. Asher in the cellar,” Chiron ordered. “Leo, if you wish there are some metal bars and things that you could use to create a cage. Don’t take too long.” Jason and Leo nodded and escorted Asher into the building. “Piper, Will, take Sapphire to one of the guest rooms. Will can stay with her while we talk.”

“Chiron, maybe Piper should…” Annabeth was interrupted by the two wolves nosing their way past her and standing in front of Chiron.

“Oh,” Mr. D said in surprise when he saw them. The wolves looked at Chiron, who nodded after a moment.

“I see,” he said. “Annabeth, Sapphire will be alright with Will. These two will make sure.”

Nico hadn’t intended to bring the wolves with them when they traveled, in fact, he was quite sure that he hadn’t. Then again, they had been protecting a child of Hades which was enough of a reason to suspect that they were not mortal in origin. Nico joined Annabeth in eyeing the wolves and he could have sworn the brown one winked at him.

He was probably just tired.

Piper and Will took Sapphire inside and the wolves followed. Chiron then told Mr. D that he had stuff to take care of that was of greater importance than their pinochle game. Mr. D sighed and muttered that he could play solitaire. The rest of them went inside and sat around the ping-pong table.

There was a lot that they had to talk about. 


	22. In the Almost End

_Sapphire’s POV_

Sapphire woke up gasping. The wall of fur in front of her face tickled her nose and she sneezed thrice. The wall of fur turned its head, revealing itself to be the sliver wolf. The wolf and Sapphire both blinked.

“Sapphire?”

Sapphire sat up slowly and saw Will Solace sitting in a chair by the door of the room. The brown wolf was sitting on the floor beside him, his eyes fixed on Sapphire. The sliver she-wolf was lying beside her on the bed, serving as a barrier between her and the two males.

“Where are we?” she asked warily.

“The Big House,” Will replied. “Piper said you wouldn’t wake up for an hour at least; it’s only been twenty minutes.”

“I had nightmares.”

Will stood up and Sapphire flinched backwards away from him. The she-wolf growled. The brown wolf grabbed the back of Will’s shirt with his teeth and pulled the son of Apollo back into his seat.

Will held his hands up in the surrender position. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to run a diagnostic on you while you were sleeping. It seemed rude and kind of creepy.”

Sapphire was on the verge of hyperventilating. The she-wolf head butted her hand and Sapphire petted her while she got her breathing under control. “How long have you been here?” she asked Will. “Where’s Nico?”

“He’s in the rec room with the others.” Will sighed. “Sapphire, you’re my best friend’s sister. I couldn’t hurt you even if Akio’s sliver friend _wasn’t_ in the room giving me the evil eye.”

Sapphire blinked. Akio? She realized there was only one creature Will could be talking about.

She looked at the brown wolf. “Your name is Akio?” she asked him.

The wolf nodded.

Her eyes shot back up to Will. “And he told you that how?” 

Will lowered his hands and shrugged uncomfortably. “Wolves are sacred to my dad, so apparently…”

“Telepathy,” Sapphire finished. “Akio is my brother’s middle name. It’s Japanese, for my mum’s side of the family.” Her middle name was supposed to have been Aimi and Amber’s Sora for the same reason. However, her father’s aunt had arrived after they were born and demanded that their names “not be utterly ridiculous”. Their great-aunt was a sour old hag, but she was a moderately rich sour old hag with the ability to make their lives hell, a regular Aunt March, but without the good intentions. So they became Sapphire Amy and Amber Sara, and their parents thanked their lucky stars that Richie had been born when the old hag was in Spain.

Will didn’t look surprised that one of the wolves that saved Sapphire’s life had her brother’s name. He pulled a piece of surgical tubing out of his pocket and started tying it in intricate knots.

Demigod ADHD, you either love it, or pray that it keeps you alive without kicking in at inopportune moments.

“Sapphire, with all doctor-patient confidentiality in place, did Asher hurt you?” Will asked.

Sapphire stopped petting the she-wolf and felt goosebumps rising up on her arms, despite her long sleeves.

“Just the sleeping darts, two of ‘em. Kind of overkill, don’t you think?” she tried to make a joke of it, and failed miserably because of how much her voice was shaking. The she-wolf nudged her hand and she began stroking her fur again.

“Sapphire,” Will said carefully.

Sapphire blinked and two tears ran down her cheeks. “Not in the way you mean,” she said quietly. “The wolves came before he could.”

Though she had been trying hard not to think about it, sharp images of what had happened before Jason had come flying down into the forest jumped to the front of her mind. Waking up tied to the tree with duct tape over her mouth. Trying, and failing, to use her powers, any of them, against Asher. Asher’s taunting confession of what he had done to the other three girls. Kicking out at Asher and having him respond by slapping her across the face. Her throat had swelled up because she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Praying frantically to her father, to Artemis, to Apollo, the only gods she can think of who may be able to help her in that dead, wild place. Hoping that Callie and Scarlett’s magic is as good as they say and Nico, Leo, Annabeth and the rest know that she’s in danger and will be able to see where she is.

Asher, with one hand at her throat threatening to strangle her and the other creeping up from between her legs to undo her belt.

Akio and the she-wolf, sleek streaks of fur, running from behind her and knocking Asher away. The she-wolf had cut the ropes and Akio had backed the crab-walking Asher into a tree. Sapphire had done up her belt and ripped the duct tape off her lips. The she-wolf had sat beside her while Akio growled threateningly at Asher. Sapphire vaguely recalled feeling her ring around her finger before she curled up into a ball. She had mentally checked out about two seconds before a shout came from above and Jason dove to the ground.

“I need a phone,” Sapphire said abruptly. She needed to talk to Ed _now._

She swung herself off the bed. She shook off the she-wolf, who attempted to hold her back. Her boots hit the floor and she stood up. Immediately she felt dizzy and her knees buckled, requiring Akio to let Will stand so that he could stop her from falling. Will and the she-wolf made her sit back on the bed.

“You’ve still got sleeping potion in your system,” Will chided. “And Piper’s charmspeak did a number on you. You should _rest_.”

“I need to talk to my friend. Please, Will…”

Will sighed. He looked at the she-wolf, and then at Akio. “Make sure she stays put,” he told them.

Akio nodded, the she-wolf snorted. Will left the room and came back about three minutes later with Annabeth. Annabeth didn’t ask any questions, which meant Will had probably already told her everything he knew. The two of them helped Sapphire walk and they headed to another room that had Celestial Bronze plating the walls. The wolves padded after them.

When they entered the room Annabeth took her cellphone out of her pocket, turned it on, and handed it to Sapphire.

“Five minutes,” she said.

“It’s long-distance,” Sapphire warned her.

Annabeth waved off her concerns. “My phone plan is through Hermes Telecom, you could call someone in Australia and the cost would be the same as if they were in the same building as you.”

The wolves sat by the door and Will and Annabeth left the room. Sapphire shakily dialed Ed’s home number, remembering to add the ‘1’ to the beginning. The phone rang once, twice, three times, and then someone picked up.

“Hello?”

Sapphire quickly had to sit down. She slid to the floor and drew her knees up to her chin.

“Hello?” the person asked again.

“Hi Ed, it’s me,” Sapphire said quietly.

Ed didn’t reply right away, and she knew that he was standing stock still in his kitchen with the handset to his ear, blinking in shock.

“Sapphire?” he finally asked incredulously.

“Yeah. Sorry, I’m borrowing a phone, roaming charges.”

“Ah…Your parents said that you’d won a contest to go to some sort of literature camp in the States.”

Sapphire smiled sadly. Akio watched her carefully. “That’s not completely true Ed, and I swear I’ll tell you everything once I get home, but right now, something’s happened.” She breathed in raggedly.

“Sapphire?” Ed asked again, this time with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“I...I can’t tell you yet. It won’t make sense until I tell you everything else and I need to do that face to face. Just…talk to me. Please?”

Ed knew her better than anyone, and he probably already had a good idea of what had happened. Instead of pressing on, he told her about what had happened the day his little brother, Davey, had come back from his sports camp and decided to show off the karate moves he had learned. Suffice it to say that their mother had put away everything in their house that had even the remote possibility of shattering. He talked to her until the five minutes were up and Annabeth came to retrieve her phone. Sapphire motioned for her to wait while Ed finished his sentence.

“Ed,” she said when he’d finished. “I have to go. I have to give the phone back.”

She could practically hear him frowning. “Already?”

“Yup.” She sighed. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Ed said. “Will you be able to call back?”

Seeing Annabeth waiting impatiently, Sapphire grimaced. “Probably not,” she said. “I’ll be back by August eleventh.”

“I’ll come see you as soon as you are,” Ed promised.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

They both hung up. Sapphire turned the phone off as she stood and handed it back to the waiting Annabeth.

“Did it help?” Annabeth asked her. Sapphire nodded. Akio made a small noise and his sliver companion stepped on his paw.

“Thanks,” Sapphire said.

Annabeth gave a small smile. “You’re welcome. Just don’t make a habit of it.”

“I’ll try.”

They stood in silence for a brief second. Then Annabeth said, “Chiron wants to talk to you.” Sapphire’s heartbeat doubled in speed.

“About?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

“What happened with Asher.” Annabeth put a hand on Sapphire’s shoulder. Unfortunately, it was her robotic hand, which made it slightly less comforting. The intent was there though. She looked at Sapphire reassuringly. “Piper and I will be with you the whole time.” She looked briefly at Akio, who was looking up at her purposefully. “And I guess those two will be as well.” The she-wolf nodded.

Sapphire breathed out slowly. “Alright, but I want to see my brother first.”

Annabeth agreed. She stood beside Sapphire while she was hugged by Nico, and then Leo, who moved carefully so that he didn’t let his anger at Asher cause him to hurt her. Then Annabeth, Piper, Sapphire, and the two wolves sat in the living room and Sapphire evenly told Chiron everything that had happened, occasionally stroking the coat of one of the wolves when she reached a part that she really didn’t want to talk about. Chiron simply listened. When she was finished talking he closed his eyes, appeared to count to ten, and then assured her that Asher would be well and duly punished.

Sapphire thought that there would definitely be at least three gods involved. Asher had gloatingly admitted to raping the other three girls before handing them off to the people who’d horribly murdered them. Actually, Boreas, Demeter, and Apollo might not even get their hands on him. There was a pretty good chance that the Demeter and Apollo Cabins would beat information out of him first and leave nothing left for their parents. Sapphire knew that if Nico had been in the room while she was talking he would have left to go down to the basement and beat Asher to a pulp.

And she wasn’t even dead.

Chiron eventually let her leave. For some reason, the wolves remained in the living room with him while he stroked his beard in deep thought. Annabeth, Piper, and Sapphire went straight to the rec room, where the boys were waiting for them. With permission granted by Sapphire, Annabeth quickly gave the cliff-notes version of what Sapphire had just told Chiron and then ended by saying that Chiron was at that moment deciding what they were going to do. The last part was the only reason that Will and Nico didn’t march down to the basement.

When Annabeth had started talking, Sapphire sat down beside Leo and buried her head in his shirt. Leo had responded by wrapping his arms around her and eventually lifting her onto his lap when she became so tensed that she was likely to fall out of her chair. She remained there after Chiron came into the room and ordered a full head counselor meeting. The day then started catching up to her and by the time everyone had arrived she was fast asleep. She slept through the meeting and Annabeth and Nico would have allowed her to sleep through the vote as well, but everyone else insisted on walking her up.

“For those of you just joining us,” Chiron said, looking at Sapphire, “we have decided that Jeremy Asher will either be handed over to the gods on the Council, or brought to Olympus on the winter solstice to be tried by all fourteen Olympians. As Olympus doesn’t have a jail, I would arrange for Mr. Asher to be held in the cells in Rome if we decide on the second option. All in favour of giving him to the gods now…”

A handful of hands went up and Chiron counted them. Neither Nico, nor Leo, nor Sapphire voted for the first option. Neither did Annabeth. When Chiron asked who wanted to give Asher to the gods on the solstice, the remaining two thirds of the head counselors raised their hands.

“The other girls can give evidence,” Sapphire said softly.

Nico nodded, and then explained for the counselors who didn’t understand. “If we bring him to Olympus on the solstice, then our father can bring the three who died with him. They haven’t crossed the Styx properly because of the body parts they’re missing, so they’ll remember everything and be able to tell the gods.”

A flurry of noise broke out at the mention of the dead girls, and Chiron had to stomp his hoof for order. “It’s settled,” he said when it was quiet. “I will make arrangement to have Mr. Asher transferred to the prison in New Rome, and then, on the winter solstice, he will be judged by the gods on Olympus.”

The meeting broke up, and Sapphire was left feeling like the weight of the sky had been lifted off her shoulders. 


	23. The Beginning of the Rest of Our Lives

_Sapphire’s POV_

The counselors were not supposed to talk about the decisions that had been made regarding Asher. Of course, that meant that the information was all over camp by sundown the next day. Exactly how he had come to be captured remained a mystery to the general populace, though there was an unwritten agreement that the daughter of Hades was involved somehow. The rumours were ridiculous, one of them involved Sapphire riding a hellhound and running down Asher just before he was going to fly off a cliff on a dragon, but most people weren’t looking at Sapphire like she had three heads anymore. By the time camp ended, Sapphire had made a few casual friends, including Piper’s sister Lacy, Mike Morgan from the Hecate Cabin, Will Solace, and (surprisingly) Leila Vagnsdóttir.

There were a few (mostly sons of Ares) who weren’t happy about her involvement in Asher’s capture, and the punishment that was rumoured to be coming. She did her best not to get cornered, but it wasn’t always possible. She practiced a lot and when she did get into trouble she would shadow travel to Cabin 13 or to the Persephone Cabin. Sometimes she’d get jumped multiple times in one day, which was more than a little annoying. When this happened she didn’t even bother running away. She just beat them up. By the week after the ambushes had started, she didn’t have to worry anymore.

Apparently petty revenge was not worth getting tied into knots by your own shadow.

The sliver she-wolf disappeared from camp after the head counselor meeting, but Sapphire swore that she sometimes saw Akio lurking about. The wolf’s bright blue eyes were a little hard to miss. She couldn’t be sure though, so she didn’t mention it to her brother.

Nico had gone into super-duper overprotective mode after the third ambush, which meant that Will, Percy, Annabeth, Jason and Sapphire had to talk him out of killing people, multiple times. Actually, it was more like Will, Annabeth, Piper and Sapphire had to talk the three sons of the Big Three out of drowning, electrocuting, and killing whoever was responsible for almost hurting Sapphire, because Percy and Jason were usually swayed to Nico’s side by the middle of the argument.

When Sapphire wrote to Amber and said that it felt like she had three older brothers, she meant it. 

Leo could also be classed as super-duper overprotective, though he showed it differently, namely in the form of a flaming sword that shrunk into a working lighter. “Well,” Sapphire said when he gave it to her. “You sure know the way to a girl’s heart.”

Leo blushed. “Lacy said I should have gotten you flowers…” he started. Sapphire cut him off by kissing him until his ears caught fire.

Because of her strangeness, Sapphire named her new sword ‘Flamma’, meaning flames, and then spent three hours becoming accustomed to it. Since Flamma wasn’t curved like Swift Death, its balance was different and it was a lot more useful for stabbing. Clarisse did get angry at her because she incinerated more than a few of the training dummies, but she mellowed out after she beat Sapphire in three sword fights.

Once the ambushes stopped Sapphire got to work at feeling at home at Camp Half-Blood when there wasn’t a greater than normal chance of getting maimed or killed. She scaled the climbing wall, lost races to dryads, and went to the temple to hear the daily concerts. She applied for a part-time job at the camp store, as she did still have to pay Nico back. She didn’t get the job, but Jacob Randall, the son of Iris who ran the store, hinted that there would be an opening next summer when one of Hermes’ adult sons left camp.

During her free time she would spend time in the Persephone Cabin talking to Rosalind, drop in on Leo (usually distracting him from whatever project he was working on), or head down to the archery range and practice shooting. Lacy had introduced her to the modified semi-automatic Smith & Wesson .45 ACP Chief's Special, which was her favourite weapon, but they both agreed after Sapphire had fired only one shot that giving her a gun was not a good idea.

They never actually found the bullet, which was a waste of Celestial Bronze. Sapphire hadn’t even seen where it went.

Sapphire was becoming better at archery, the arrows she fired were slowly migrating to the centre of the target, and people stopped seriously ducking when she went to the range with a bow in her hand. When Percy joined her though, everyone ducked for their lives. How he managed to fire arrows backwards no-one could figure out.

A week after the Asher incident, Sapphire sent a sizable package home. It included a package of moonlace seeds (which she’d gotten from Percy) for her mum, a shark-tooth necklace for Richie (made from the only piece of bone she had yet to raise), a singing wind-up miniature centaur for her dad (she and Leo had only been able to get it to sing Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’), and a shallow soapstone bowl for Amber (it was originally going to be a seal, but Sapphire’s lack of artistic ability decided otherwise). With the package went a letter, telling her family that she was well, detailing a few of the less dangerous activities, and asking permission for camp friends to come over during the year.

Seriously, Nico would probably pop over at random times anyway, so it would be better if he had a standing invitation.

She didn’t know what her parents would see if Festus tried to land in the backyard, or how they would feel about her having a boyfriend who was two years older than her and had never completed high school, but she could cross that bridge when it shoved itself in front of her face and refused to move. 

Sapphire threw herself into activities, and actually managed to get Nico to follow their activity schedule. Nico admitted that he would normally skip canoeing and history lessons, but Sapphire thought that he actually started to enjoy those the most; especially once he was able to keep the canoe upright. No, that was a lie. Without a doubt, Nico’s favourite activity was sword fighting. With all the long-forgotten and culturally different sword techniques he had learned while training with the dead, the only person at camp he couldn’t beat in a straight sword fight was Percy. 

Percy was a supernaturally talented swordsman. Sometimes he would give people he didn’t like his wolf glare during a fight, and then they become completely paralyzed in the singular ‘oh my gods, Percy is going to kill me’ way. It was quite amusing to watch. 

Nico was trying to teach Sapphire to raise skeleton warriors, but it was useless. Even thinking about the walking skeletons freaked her out. She was probably the only child of Hades who was scared to death of dead bodies.

After Asher was moved to Camp Jupiter time started to fly by. Sapphire was honestly surprised when the form letter reminding them to get out of camp before noon or the harpies would eat them arrived. Mr. D had definitely filled them out, because her’s was addressed to “Sabrina Balaqua” and Nico’s to “Nemo D'Addario”.

“You’re not staying, are you?” Nico asked.

Sapphire nodded. “I promised Ed I’d come home.” she said. “And my mum would freak if I dropped out of school.”

It didn’t take her long to pack. Aside from a few extra weapons and a handful of drachmas (which she’d borrowed from Nico), the only things she had accumulated were a camp T-shirt, the orange camp toque she’d bought the day she went to Olympus, and her camp necklace, which had a grand total of one bead on it.

That year’s bead was the first bead since the Titan War to include names of the dead. Around the snowflake, sunburst, and poppy was the name of the girl that was represented by them.

Ursula Afolayan.

Emma Summers.

Rose Wintergreen.

All on a grey background. When the beads were handed out Sapphire thought she heard the whispering voices of the three girls, but they were too brief for her to be sure.

With Leo’s and Mike’s help, she lengthened the chain of her necklace/sheath so that the three stones hung below her collarbone. She was then able to wear both it and her camp necklace at the same time.

At about quarter to twelve, after she’d said goodbye to her other friends, Sapphire, Nico and Leo stood on Half-Blood Hill. Peleus was drowsily blowing smoke rings while the vans that were transporting campers to the airport were being loaded. Sapphire was not going to the airport, for obvious reasons, so Nico was now giving her last minute instructions for shadow traveling to her house.

“I’ve got it, Nico.” she insisted. “Promise.” Nico closed his mouth. Sapphire gave a laugh and hugged him. “Promise you’ll come visit?” she asked.

“Of course,” Nico said.

Sapphire drew back and then gave Leo a matching hug, topped off with a kiss. “Both of you?”

“Promise,” Leo said. “You’ll IM?”

“Whenever I can,” Sapphire assured him. Nico coughed and Sapphire stepped out of Leo’s arms. She gave Nico a sly grin and then pulled Leo in for a long kiss.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that in front of me,” Nico muttered when they finally stopped.

“Get used to it, Death Boy.” Leo smirked. Sapphire giggled. Smiling, she stepped backwards into the shadow of Thalia’s Tree.

“IM me if you get lost!” Nico reminded.

“If I end up in Cape Town, I could just go to my aunt’s house,” Sapphire suggested. The look on Nico’s face made her giggled again. “Yes, I’ll IM you. Bye.”

“Bye,” the two boys said.

Sapphire traveled. When she stepped out of the shadow she fell a foot and landed on a person. “Oof!”

It took a bit of twisting, but Sapphire was easily able to see her sister’s face. “Oops.” She smiled. She got up and offered Amber a hand. “I guess I undershot.”

Amber ignored the hand and gave her twin a bone-crushing hug. “Welcome home!” she exclaimed. “I missed you!” Amber stepped back and held Sapphire at arm’s length. Her smile drooped slightly. “What happened to your face?”

Sapphire rubbed a hand over her scar, which she hadn’t made mention of in any of her letters. “Are mum and dad at the store?” she asked.

Amber nodded. “And Richie’s out with friends,” she supplied.

Sapphire put her bag down on Amber’s bed, and then moved it to the floor when Amber raised her eyebrows. “Let me make a call,” she said. “Then I’ll tell you everything.”

Sapphire ran downstairs and picked up the phone. She didn’t hesitate before dialing the phone number that she knew as well as her own.

“Hello?”

Sapphire grinned. “Hi Ed. Can you come over?” The dial tone was enough of an answer. About fifteen seconds later there was a knock at the back door. Sapphire answered and her best friend smiled at her.

“Of course I can come over.” Ed stepped inside and Sapphire closed the door behind him. Amber, who had heard the knock, ran into the kitchen.

“Hi Ed!”

“Hi Amber.”

They all sat in the living room. Sapphire took a deep breath. “I have a lot to tell you.” 

FINIS


End file.
